Roadside Wildflower
by Oldflowers
Summary: It hits like ice-water on naked skin when Rick relives the moment he wrenched out Shane's soul. It's what Rick deserves to see before he dies, bleeding out into the grass while Shane struggles to keep him alive. But it isn't. Instead, it's a hundred thousand vivid memories, back-to-back. It's the fingerprint of everything he's ever felt. [Rick/Shane, pre-canon.]
1. Jan 1965 to Jun 1975

_Red roadside wildflower, if I had only picked you, _

_took you home, set you on the counter _

_oh, at least a time or two._

* * *

**APRIL 29, 2010: PRESENT DAY**

When his body falls, it feels as if the air resists his weight, pushing him upward, white-hot before it's icy, slower than any fathomable sensation. Hitting the sticky grass feels like spilling his bones onto a soft, cold cloud.

Shane drops to his knees and scrambles over his chest, gloved hands slipping frantically over his body, but Rick's devastated flesh is numb to it. It's as if hands have gripped him by the jaw and wrenched his head skyward; bound his muscles in place, motionless and traumatized. The world is a stinging vision of blinding white static before it's eclipsed by Shane's voice and his moon-wide eyes. That's calming for a while — it's all he could ask for if he's going to die.

"Shh-shh. Listen to me; hey. You just breathe, you hear me? Don't you dare stop, don't you _dare _stop, brother, you hear me? Shh-shh, listen to me, Rick, you _breathe_."

Shane's failing to hide the fear: blood-drained, mouth stern, eyes blown so wide, they're all Rick can focus on. There's no sign of his irises. Rick's own blood is polishing the trembling black leather hands that are _pushing, shoving_ on him, absolutely unrelenting. "—you know that? It's gonna be okay; we're gonna make it, you understand me?"

The only motion Rick can make is to breathe; when he does, he's crippled — an explosion of pain crashes into him, a blast of recognition, blindingly swift. There's a vivid, miserable agony of mangled muscle tissue grinding between broken rib bones and hot bullet fragments. The numbness is ripped from his nerves like a festering tooth, and if he could manage it, every inch of him would writhe. Burned alive by a hellfire kind of torment, there's nothing left to move; he's forgotten how to scream.

The breeze in the trees evaporates into a mere suggestion of sound as his ears descend into an ocean of still water. He's distantly aware of the faint sound of Shane desperately willing him to breathe, and trying is the least he can do for him, though he's lost all energy to weather the torment. His mouth hangs open with the effort. Shane looks at him as if desperately trying to find hope in his blue eyes. Georgia's April wind tastes like just gunpowder and blood and the faint suggestion of Shane's stolen sip of Rick's strawberry-mint malt.

He misses the scent of the honeysuckle plant that's climbing his fence back home. It's this vivid, almost otherworldly green-white that projects a perfect image of the forest it crawled from, nestled next to Lori's mother's gaudy hyacinth garden. Lori says it's a weed he should have pulled as soon as spring started. She called it invasive, and then a distraction. The one thing Rick wanted in that garden, the one thing he could shape and nurture and show Carl: a distraction.

Shane disappears, the empty face of a city paramedic occupying his place. Rick only has an instant to grieve the loss before he feels himself being tugged and pulled and tilted. Shane had held him steady, warmed his icy skin with his breaths, and told him to stay.

It occurs to him that he hasn't yet gotten to ask Shane if he'll let him dig up one of those honeysuckle roots and replant it at his house when he moves in after the divorce. It'll go right against the outside wall, close to the backyard gate. They'll get a trellis, maybe. Maybe some English Ivy, some lamb's ear around the front perimeter in the flower beds that Shane ignores. Shane would like it. He knows he would. Shane's momma would've liked it, too. Honeysuckle right next to her window, close enough for the intoxicating smell to flood the whole house in the morning when she opened it. Maybe it would've made her rethink things if she could've woken up every day and looked right at something beautiful.

For him, it did, when he had something truly beautiful to look at. Beautiful in his own way, anyway, like the trembling moss clinging to the bottom of that old glassy stream — the one he and Shane would play in together; the one Carl uses to catch small frogs.

His body is stone-dead as he observes his vision blurring to oblivion, helpless to resist it. It's the thoughts of those beautiful things that grip him with terror. He sees dark brown eyes, starry skies over the lake, Carl's baby kisses, the drooling smile of his old dog, Bubba. And then, like ice-water on naked skin, he sees the moment every star in Shane's galaxy burned out into cold dust as he wrenched out his heart, still beating in his hand to the rhythm Rick had set for it. It's what Rick deserves to see before he dies.

But it isn't.

His entire life speeds by his last threads of consciousness like a flipbook made special. It's almost like purgatory. It's images and vivid memories. It's the fingerprint of every emotion he's ever felt: pictures he's seen, things he's done, things he's only been told stories of. It's a vivid image of his mother that he sees first, peering back at him from the streaky blackness of oblivion. She's young in a way he's never seen her; a way he's only ever heard her described.

**JANUARY 1965**

Ramona Mathews and Isabelle Strinati stand on the front steps of their university, the edges of the stairs chewed by a relentless frost. Posing for a picture, the close friends' arms are linked. They both have one leg theatrically kicked as if in mid-stride, just like in Isabelle's favorite movie, _The Wizard of Oz_. Their opposite arms clutch their textbooks to their sweaters. It's undoubtedly a pose that was Isabelle's idea. Ramona plays along with a goofy smile and Isabelle is in the middle of a laugh that threatens her balance.

**DECEMBER 1967**

Ramona sits sunken into a plush couch, tightly holding the arm of Tim Grimes in her junior year of college. Her hand glitters with an engagement ring as she leans over the coffee table and points something out to Isabelle. They're all well-dressed. It's a house party Tim's college friend threw, and even though Isabelle chose not to go for a four-year, Ramona invited her anyway. Isabelle looks like a doll, swallowed by that matching chair with her hands clasped on her lap. Since taking on that military lover, she's begun to devolve into something weak and sunken. He's not there, of course. He's stationed somewhere Isabelle thought he'd rather be. The way Isabelle looks, it's a wonder whether Ramona urging her to leave her dark apartment was worth it.

**OCTOBER 1969**

Ramona's wedding is swallowed by white colors wherever one turns. It's held in her daddy's church, classic, elegant, Southern-humble, just like she and Tim and every couple this side of the Mason-Dixon desired. Ramona's fair hair is pulled back in her sister's intricate braids, and her mouth is split in a silly grin she can't control even as Tim Grimes tries to properly kiss her, and there's a laugh in his eyes as he accidentally kisses her teeth the first time. It's not a wedding for royalty; people cheer and they clap and throw up their hands, and Ramona and Tim are laughing and kissing, and after a moment, they simply _hug_. Isabelle stands in her bridesmaid dress to the side, remaining silent, standing still while everyone's a wild mess. Quiet smile, quiet eyes, _small_.

**JULY 11, 1970**

Ramona Grimes' blue eyes are as lively as ever as she holds a fresh baby girl in her arms, smiling that outrageous grin she always got and would keep until she died. The baby is red-haired, which confused them initially, but Tim has an aunt with hair like a firetruck, so it isn't _paranormally _unusual. Out of respect for the unexpected persistence of the woman's genes, they name their daughter Jessica.

**APRIL 1972 **

It's late April, right on the heels of their tax return, and Tim and Ramona Grimes chat giddily in the bathroom about her pregnancy test. Their heads are craned over it, both of them gripping either side of the stick to see it closer as if it might change its mind. There isn't enough room on the thing for them both to hold it, and Ramona wins out, pulling it fiercely and tucking it to her chest, happily stomping like a madwoman. Tim pulls her into a hug to spare the life of his tile, and he's powerless to hold in his laughter when she slams her head into his chest to muffle her delighted scream.

**AUGUST 1972**

August, Friday, miserably sullen weather that has every corner of the state drowsy with the thickness of the hot water in the air. It's nighttime. Every window is open in the apartment. The fan is on, the lights are off, the moon casts a dull navy glow from the window into the kitchen. It's Isabelle, alone, bent over the kitchen counter in old boxers Henry left behind over a month ago. Her dark hair runs down her face like a blackout curtain. Crying into the landline, she grips tightly onto the counter because she might fall if she doesn't. Her head pounds like a hangover, and her ear hurts from keeping the phone slammed so close to it, like pulling it tighter will bring Ramona any closer. She's buried her pregnancy test deep into the wastebasket, positive, broken in half, only because it's too hot to light the fireplace and burn it.

**NOVEMBER 1972**

Mid-November, and the heat has been replaced with a dreary chill. Isabelle poses on the steps of the courthouse, standing with an unsmiling man, her marriage certificate held too-tight at her side, her makeup more stern than usual. Henry isn't smiling, so she feels like a fool for trying to fake one. Her long, black button-up dress doesn't hide her baby bump as he'd wanted, and it took her an hour to make sure her concealer hid the fact that she'd spent the morning driven to tears. Her thick Italian curls are emphasized with a few runs of a curling iron. Her nose is strong, her chin is pronounced, and her eyes are darker than his. She's always been somewhat proud to look into any mirror and see the reflection of her own heritage. Henry would strip her of that, too. There is nothing Italian about the name Walsh.

**JANUARY 3, 1973**

January third sees frost eat its way up the hospital windows, snow piling on the sill, leaving the family toasty and warm untouched within. Ramona resists every urge to squeeze her new baby boy for hours, she thinks he's so precious. Tim runs his fingers through her hair, her blonde tendrils still drenched in sweat from the labor. There aren't any surprises this time — not with Eric Steven Grimes. The baby boy has his mother's blue eyes and light hair, though the doctor says he could grow out of the latter. He has Tim's nose and Ramona's ears; his paw-paw's name and Ramona's affectionate diminutive: Rick. It's a disappointment to both of them that Isabelle couldn't come. She told them it was car trouble, but the wet hitch of her voice and the half-sob clued them in that it was a lie she was forced to feed them.

**APRIL 19, 1973**

April nineteenth hits Isabelle like a bullet to the head, and the pain is like a wound to every place that wouldn't kill her. She feels so much like dying, she begs for it. It's torture, it's loss, it's fear, and it'd be worse if she were truly alone. Henry's in a country she can't pronounce, but Ramona is outside that door, and Isabelle knows it. The doctors hand her the crying little thing, and Isabelle, at first, is only confused. They wash it, they hold it, they smile at it, they swaddle it. Him.

The only thing that redeems him to her is the fact that he looks more like herself than Henry. His eyes are too dark, his skin is the shade of sand, his hair is black without the faintest dimension. Absently, exhaustedly, she winds her finger in it when Ramona has left and they're both alone. She's damningly gentle, tender, so soft with him that she almost looks afraid she'll burn his skin. The gentle twist runs out of hair to grasp; her son's charcoal curl coils back into its place from her finger, soft, supple, strong. She places a warm kiss on his sleeping face and rocks him with little bounces up and down. The room is blind-dark and the air whispers paranormal, but he's the most frightening thing she's ever known - her own personal terror. And there she lays, bathed in sweat and aching with pain, cherishing him like cursed jewels to a starving thief.

The nurses take him from her while she sleeps, and she vomits from the terror in the morning when she doesn't have her son. She's been alone for as long as she can remember, so used to silence, it's developed its own sweet melody, and yet she's come to need her baby, like an umbilical cord she's unready to snip. They place him beside her in a cart, and she lives for the moments when Ramona and her daughter come to tell her stories, Ramona talking about home and Jessica babbling at her feet.

She never unhands him, though, not willingly. Ramona has to convince her to let her hold the baby, and Isabelle watches her like she'll drop him, never having expected not to trust her son's life with the only woman whom she'd ever trust with hers. Though Ramona is two years older, her skin is young and lively and nothing like Isabelle's own. Nine months without the comfort of her vices have failed to reverse the evidence of Isabelle's years of cigarettes and guilty numb-sweet drinks.

Ramona helps her dress in normal clothes. Isabelle meets her eyes in the mirror as Ramona snaps her bra from behind. She listens to Ramona's anecdotes about childbirth while she begins to brush the sweaty tangles from her hair. Ramona eyes her strangely when she asks her what she's chosen to name her baby.

Isabelle looks past their figures, resting on the tiny body among the blankets behind them. "Shane. His middle name's Giovanni, after my father." She watches the child stir in the little cart, tiny hands briefly reaching upward until sleep steals him away. She smiles. "Henry told me to name him Xavier," Isabelle says, "but I'm gonna name him Shane."

Ramona warmly smiles, proud, and hugs her shoulders and kisses her cheek with something ecstatic that Isabelle misses every day. She never gets that energy from the dark walls in her apartment. It's a sight for sore eyes when Isabelle sees her own face laugh and smile. "You're gettin' better at ignorin' that asshole," Ramona says, and Isabelle rolls her eyes. She's glad to look at something other than her own chapped smile when Ramona's big blues look down at her directly. "Hey now. You won't say it, so I'll say it for you."

"I can't stop you," Isabelle says. She hardly believes the sound of a giggle in her own voice.

"Shane," Ramona says like it's a word and not a name, like a child learning a new word. "Shaane. _Shayne_. Hm."

"Oh god," Isabelle says. If Ramona weren't holding her hair still, she'd stumble on over to the bathroom to get away from the sound of her butchering it like a pig. Ramona ignores her squirming and deftly weaves the tight braid, squeezing a hand on her shoulder and passing her a goofy wink.

Ramona says, "Oh, hush. It's cute. It's a good name. Strong."

"I know," says Isabelle.

Ramona weaves and tucks and weaves and tucks and brushes out the last little kinks before weaving and tucking her way down Isabelle's spine again. "Where'd you get it?"

Isabelle tenses despite herself, seeing her own shoulders freeze and stiffen in the mirror. Artificially, she scratches an itch on her cheek. "The baby book."

If Ramona notices the stiffness in her voice, she ignores it, continuing on sweetly. "I told you you'd like it. It was a hard night," she says, then catches Isabelle's eyes, her own big and blue and lovely gaze framed by bob-length blonde curls. "But I know you. I knew you would."

Isabelle half-smiles, tight, but affectionate.

She tries not to remember the gruesome headache and clutching a mug of Ramona's chamomile tea like a security blanket as she sobbed and crawled back on the couch until she couldn't crawl anymore. Ramona finally cornered her for a hug she thought she didn't want. She could smell Ramona's flowery perfume, warm, homey, underlying the scent of Tim and barnwood from the wonderful life she'd carved for herself. Ramona was a foreign character in Isabelle's shadowy apartment — a vivid, soulful spirit in a graveyard of melancholy. She didn't belong in the city. It's why Isabelle never invited her.

That night was a mantra of duplicate sentiments._ "It's okay." "You're gonna be a perfect mom." "You don't need him, you have me and Tim." "I'm here, sweetie. I'm here right now ."_

It only stole Isabelle away to that party in college, long enough ago that it shouldn't have bothered her any longer. Isabelle had had too many shots, but Ramona was a better woman than her, taking dainty sips and socializing and being the glowing star of health and studentry. Ramona had tasted like strawberry and vodka when Isabelle drunkenly kissed her after asking if she wanted to know a secret. Oh, how Isabelle had delighted in the goofy laugh in Ramona's voice when she told her,_ "Throw it at me."_ Maybe she wouldn't have kissed her if Ramona hadn't made that sound, pretty and perfect and fresh as a raindrop.

She never quite stopped being haunted by what happened after that — the steadying feeling of Ramona's hands on her shoulders moving her back, those blue eyes shocked and _goofy_. _"Oh, no no, honey, too much booze for you, girl," _she'd said, blushing and marked with a smear of red lipstick on her mouth. Ramona had needed to hold her upright on the walk back to their dorm; no matter Isabelle's weak resistance, she never let up, never loosened, not until she deposited her body on her fluffy white sheets.

It had been the next morning, maybe the morning after, that Isabelle asked her the big question; Ramona told her, ever so gently, she didn't feel the same way. Isabelle had shut herself in her room for days. Ramona had practically _lived _outside that door, reassuring her that nothing was wrong. _"I don't hate you, Isabelle; I'm _glad _you told me." _A broken record growing ever more desperate. _"Isabelle, honey, please talk to me. I can't lose my best friend." _It was the last thing she said before Isabelle had finally opened the door.

Ramona's light windbreaker was on her coffee table and that book of baby names was hidden under it. Ramona forced Isabelle into a hug that she wanted but had refused, and the mug of tea was held to her chest between them as Ramona wrapped Isabelle's shoulders in her arms and held her hair. Isabelle smelled like frozen dinners and depression and dried-up tears, and she imagines that when she sniffed and turned her face and kissed her, that's what Ramona tasted.

Ramona didn't kiss back immediately — Isabelle didn't expect her to _at all _— but she didn't pull away. Isabelle held her lips to hers and breathed her breaths and regretted what she had become, but not what she was doing. She kissed Ramona like it would tell her how scared she was, how hurt she was, how alone. Ramona, just for a moment, gradually met Isabelle's motions, and it felt almost — only _almost _— like she wanted it too. Her lips were as soft as they'd been years before, just that once — that stolen kiss that she fantasized about when the loneliness oppressed her. Maybe she was thinking of Tim; conjuring the sensation of his brown stubble on her chin and his cologne in her nose because Isabelle wasn't _male _enough. A favor for a friend; a sacrificial gesture so the broken Isabelle _Walsh _didn't hit rock bottom and finally break.

Maybe that's why Ramona didn't pull away. Pity.

When Isabelle broke the kiss, Ramona only stood shocked for an instant before she treated the moment as if nothing had ever happened_. "I love you, Isabelle,"_ she said, and Isabelle knew she did, just not how she needed her to. "_You're gonna be the best momma that baby could ask for, you understand? Henry doesn't matter. This is _you _and you can do it, honey; I know you can." _

Isabelle didn't believe her. When she said things like that, she never did. When Ramona left, she left behind the baby book, a box of chamomile tea, and a blanket that was knitted and special and big and brown. Of course, Ramona had embroidered it with her name. It was big enough to comfortably drape across her bed, but Isabelle hugged it to herself on the couch and let the numbing smoke of sleep fill her lungs and bring her death, if only temporary.

"Doesn't Shane mean 'God is good?'" Ramona asks, snapping Isabelle back into reality. "I thought I read that in there when I skimmed it,"

Isabelle shrugs. It saps what little energy she has. "Something like that, I guess."

"Oh, it doesn't matter anyway," says Ramona. "You know, Rick and that boy are gonna be like brothers, those two. Stompin' around, causin' havoc, annoying everyone to death. It'll be Shane Walsh and Rick Grimes 'gainst the whole state of Georgia. World won't know what hit it."

"You think so?" Isabelle asks. Looking at Shane, she thinks he doesn't look like the type to bring chaos.

"Oh, they're little boys," Ramona tells her. There's that smile again. Goofy, massive, the kind that means that Isabelle won't be able to stop herself from smiling back. "That's what they're born to do, isn't it?"

"It might be what they're born for, but I don't think Shane's gonna grow up to be like that," Isabelle says. She thought she'd long stopped lingering on the tender touches of Ramona's hands; for all the years she's spent suppressing her feelings, it shocks her slightly when her mind strays again. Ramona's hands rest on her bare shoulders in completion, bra fastened, braid woven, her soft hands warming Isabelle's frigid skin. Isabelle turns her chin to see the hand on her shoulder for herself; to see Ramona's ring glitter at her like a taunt, to catch the contrast of their skin colors as a bloom of gooseflesh ripples under Ramona's fingertips.

"Oh, you don't think so?" Ramona asks her, and those teasing blue eyes hold Isabelle's own, her vivid energy like a perfect foil to that tired, deep, deep brown. Ramona turns to the side and fans out a long-sleeved striped shirt for her. "For our sake, I hope you're right. When boys get into trouble, they get into it together."

Isabelle takes the shirt from her, turning to face her friend so she can look her in the eyes herself. "I'm glad you're here, Ramona," she says. "I —"

"I wouldn't ever miss this," Ramona says. She adjusts herself to sit beside Isabelle, so close, their thighs touch.

It's sudden, that feeling. Everything else evaporates like a soul leaving a body. The noise of the hospital machines, the whir of the AC, the showers of April beyond the window — they're all suddenly insignificant. Ramona wraps her arms around her body; holds her like she isn't half-naked; treats her like a _sister _and not a friend. Isabelle feels more ungrateful than ever when she realizes that it still isn't enough. "I'd never miss it, Isabelle. I wouldn't. Not ever."

Isabelle holds her hands around Ramona's waist and soaks in the contact of another person: the hands on her back, gentle touches, the comfort, the affection, the love. She remembers how it felt to rub her fingers through her son's hair, to know he is hers, to know that even when Ramona isn't here to bring her peace, he'll always be there to love her.

"I know," she tells Ramona, and it's true. But she'll never _have _Ramona; she isn't hers to keep.

Shane, however. He's _her _baby. He has her eyes and her hair and her distinctive tawny skin, more Strinati than Walsh. Holding onto that reality, the ache of that long-ago loss doesn't cut her quite so deep. She's known for years that she'll never have Ramona. A pathetic kiss on a couch in the dark, tender touches, lingering blue eyes — amount to absolutely nothing. But Shane is real. Shane, who wraps his entire tiny hand around just _one _of her fingers; Shane, who is the difference between _loved _and _alone_; Shane, who is her one and only reason to wake up and not wish she were dead.

Shane counts for something. It took Isabelle nine months to learn it.

**JUNE 1975**

The water is soapy, its lukewarm surface peppered with all manner of bath toys. The floor beneath the deep basin is thoroughly wet, though the two toddlers would have managed to keep their hair bone-dry if Ramona weren't spilling warm cupfuls of water onto their heads to wash out the dust of the day. The baby shampoo comes deathly close to falling into Rick's blue eyes; his best friend tries to stand every time Ramona sits him back down in the water. Five-year-old Jessica isn't very much help, either; she's more of a distraction, that ember-red hair peeking into Ramona's periphery, silly little hands tickling her little brother as Ramona tries to keep a hand on each wriggling boy.

She would have had Shane over for a sleepover any day regardless of whether Isabelle needed it. It makes it all the sourer to know what she's up to now: giving Henry whatever he wants for the brief few days he can bother to stay in town for his wife. Henry made Isabelle pay Ramona to watch Shane this time. It was odd, but it made sense to her in the end, why he'd do it. Henry isn't comfortable with his long-distance wife and son having relationships that are anything more than transactional.

Tim comes home the moment he's supposed to. It's the familiar jingle of keys and twinkle of wind chimes, and he gives Ramona a kiss before picking up Rick from the tub to towel him off. He tells her this and that about work, asks her about her day, tells her that he missed her — and she knows he did. Ramona prepares a towel and picks up Isabelle's son. She idly chats with Tim while they dress the boys; walks past Isabelle's $20 on her way into the living room, still pinned under the bag she packed for Shane.

Tim watches the news next to a lively Rick. Ramona holds Shane in her arms in the rocking recliner and admires how he's got his mother's eyes. He clings to her like a koala as he drifts to sleep, fingers tightly wrapped in her blouse, immovable. Ramona can't help but notice he seems starved for affection.


	2. Dec 1981 to Apr 1989

_And where would I be?_

_Feeling lonely, separated from my one and only._

_And what's there left to say?_

_Far as I can tell, that day could be on its way._

* * *

**CHRISTMAS 1981**

It's the first time Rick ever sees snow. Shane's seen it once, the time he and Mrs. Walsh visited his dad where he was stationed, but Shane's feeble description of it didn't begin to match how magical it really is. Rick sits on his heels in front of the wide window at his grandma's house as his mother points a camera at him. Jess sits behind him, giving his cheek a kiss that he's unable to flinch away from. Jess' glossy red hair falls over the side of his face and gets in his eyes, and whatever his mother is seeing has her laughing as they pose. Shane's momma is looking up and past them from where she stands helping with the dishes, and her eyes are dark as ever, even with her bright white sweater. She groans something about Shane, and Rick turns around to see his best friend standing in the window, snow glittering on the blue mittens Rick's momma made for him. Rick laughs, and his eyes are drawn to the scene behind Shane: the sprawling, dense field of fluffy-white, and the dormant trees that crawl like mountains into the sky behind it. Shane slips and falls face-first as he tries to run away, and Rick charges for the front yard so fast, he almost forgets to wear his coat.

**APRIL 20, 1984**

Shane doesn't seem to have much to do over where he lives. It's a quiet dinner at an empty dining room table with an empty kitchen sitting behind it. There are cereal boxes and stray cans of food that Rick spots when Mrs. Walsh opens the pantry, and the refrigerator has half of the amount of stuff Rick's has. The residence itself is small enough that Rick can see most of the apartment from where he sits. There are no lamps or decorations except for in Shane's room. Rick eats spaghetti from a bowl he recognizes from before they moved into the bigger house and got all-new things. There's an old TV in the dark living room, and Shane's new Atari sits vacantly next to it, unboxed, but unassembled. It's the one Shane opened up from Mrs. Walsh at Rick's house a day ago when he turned eleven. Mrs. Walsh closes the door to the patio with a box of cigarettes in her hand, and Rick sees her lean against the railing oddly, elbows on the metal, hands twisted in her hair, head down.

"Hey, Shane?" Rick says.

Shane shovels a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth, then talks, and Rick thinks to himself that Mrs. Walsh would put a stop to it if she weren't outside. "Mmph?"

"Wanna set up the new Atari?"

Shane shakes his head, wiping his mouth with a napkin, cupping his hand around a glass of tap-water because the chocolate milk was too old. "We can play video games at your place tomorrow."

Rick gestures toward the Atari nestled on the carpet. "Yeah, but this one's for you. "

Something in Shane's expression darkens, and Rick watches him put up a wall; sees him get that face he gets so rarely; the one when he's lying to him. Shane only ever lies about things that are important. "I'm tired."

"I can set it up if you —"

"I'm tired, Rick," Shane says, and Rick's startled by the volume in his voice; it's the loudest thing he's heard since the door closed behind them and Mrs. Walsh took his bag to Shane's room. "Let's just go to sleep after this, okay?"

Rick eyes Shane like a stranger would eye someone next in line at the grocery store. He remembers the Atari in its brand new box sitting in his parents' room just before his momma got to work wrapping it. He doesn't know how Mrs. Walsh's name ended up on the birthday present, but Rick knew it wasn't hers to give, and something about Rick's momma buying it for him made Rick that much more frustrated that Shane wasn't going to use it. "Shane," Rick says, "Momma told me not to tell you, but she bought it. _My_ momma, not yours."

Shane lowers his fork, looking genuinely shocked. Something about his expression makes Rick suddenly feel sorry for him, and that's something Rick has never had to feel for his best friend. "Serious?" Shane's voice is quieter than it should be.

Rick nods, though the air has been sucked out of his lungs, and his chest doesn't puff. "Yeah. Saw it in their room 'fore she and Jess started wrappin' gifts. Momma wanted you to have it—"

The patio door softly squeals, and the lukewarm breeze of evening April air brings mosquitoes and the odor of cigarettes in with it. Rick sees Shane nearly jump out of his skin, and Mrs. Walsh eyes him briefly, critically, before looking up at Rick and letting her dark gaze soften. She walks toward the table with her lighter in hand, and Rick watches her heavy night robe drag behind her, blue and dense and three sizes too big. She wears her husband's clothes almost every day, Rick notices. "It's getting late, boys," she says, depositing her lighter in a bowl on the counter. She immediately starts spooning the leftover spaghetti into a Tupperware container, and that strikes Rick as strange; his momma always asks if they want seconds.

It isn't late at all. The sun is just about to set, but it can't be any later than eight. Rick's about to mention that, but Shane's already taking their bowls and setting their tableware into the sink basin. Rick looks back at the Atari, but Shane already has something to show him in his room, and Rick decides it's best to simply follow. Shane plays spades with him on his old bed, and they share an uncomfortable blanket between them on the full-size mattress. Rick doesn't mind — Shane's slept over in his bed dozens of times. What bothers him is that the bed is old and weak and lumpy. They don't get told goodnight at Shane's house. It's odd for Rick. Shane seems used to it.

**APRIL 2, 1989**

The streets are slick with lukewarm rain that twinkles steady on the ground, insistent, but not altogether forceful. It was the weatherman's promise of a springtime storm that earned them an early release from Boy Scouts. It's why Rick can spy the darkening clouds through his bedroom window; it's why they aren't with the troop, why Shane is in his room with him in the empty house, why they wait for the rain to pass by or for the rest of the family to come home from Jess' recital before Rick drives him home. Whichever comes last.

Rick's car rests on the empty, dark pavement as if in a commercial, glistening under the steady rain. A 1989 Honda Civic sedan, four-door, new, and prettier than any car Rick had ever seen, just because it was his. Plus, it was blue. That's what Rick couldn't shut up about when he walked into the snow to see it on the morning of his birthday. Stark, fierce, electric blue against the flurry of white that consumed them.

"It's more turquoise, don't you think?" Jess said, smiling madly behind the tail of her pink scarf.

"I don't see any green in that paint job, Jess," Shane pressed, ever the one to make a point when he thought it was worth mentioning.

Though she couldn't hold back a grin at Rick's affectionate treatment of the steering wheel, Jess stuck her tongue out at Shane like it was her job — even if the sting of the biting cold had to have been anything but soothing on the raw skin. "Well, it ain't royal blue, is what I'm tryna say."

"Still blue," Shane said, walking around to the back to marvel at the trunk while Rick stayed at the wheel, frozen with glee. "Blue like Rick's eyes. I ain't ever looked at Rick and thought, 'gee, what a beautiful turquoise pair he's got on him.'"

While Jess argued with him and Shane kept holding his own — 'cause the car really _was _blue — Rick found himself briefly distracted by Shane's implication that he'd ever looked at his eyes and thought they were even pretty, much less beautiful. Beautiful was too flowery a word for Shane, Rick was sure of it. But he'd said it.

Rick looks out of his bedroom window. It's too wet to go out; they're too tired to find something to do. As addressed in the car on the way back from Boy Scouts, both of them prefer sitting in silence to Rick taking Shane home any sooner than he has to. They've changed into loose gym shorts and shirts they don't have to button, Shane promising he'll bring them back to Rick's house washed, and Rick telling him he doesn't have to bring them back at all if he doesn't want to. It's how they ended up on Rick's blankets, in a room that became too small for Rick years and years ago. It's a companionable quiet. A quiet that nothing but a tired, rain-soggy day could hope to bring. Rick's so lost in it, so focused on tracing every last raindrop that falls, that it takes him far too long to notice that Shane's been watching him the way he's watching the rain.

"I always wondered about your blue eyes, man," Shane says. Instead of looking away when Rick catches him, he owns it; doesn't budge. There's hesitation in his smile, however. Rick attributes that to Shane feeling awkward in the quiet.

Rick cracks a smile, unwrapping his arms from around his knees and laying his forearms atop them instead, balancing his chin on them so he can look at Shane right. "What's so _mysterious _about my blue eyes?" Rick asks him, making sure to layer the words with a tone that's sufficiently mocking, just to poke at him.

"Blue eyes and brown hair," Shane says, his mouth splitting into a grin. He shifts his leg and it brushes Rick's own. It's another testament to how small his room is, but Rick is suddenly only aware of Shane's proximity to him. "I mean, how's that even happen? Like, genetically, you know."

"If you can't explain it, it's probably magic," says Rick with a shrug. He lets himself enjoy the roll of Shane's eyes.

"I forgot you think you're the shit," Shane says, his voice carrying on a chuckle. His eyes search him in a way that makes Rick feel vulnerable, different. It could be that it's quiet; could be that the rain's putting them in a mood. Rick's not expecting Shane to pull his eyes away, even if it is accompanied by a small smile. It isn't like him to back down.

"I don't think I'm the shit," he says in earnest, returning his eyes to the window. "It's different from the jokes."

Shane raises an eyebrow. "Different how?"

"Different because we joke like there's a competition. We always gotta be better than the other, always gotta compare ourselves, because it's funny. But really, Shane…" Rick trails off on something that would have been a sigh had he not felt Shane move closer to him. "I'm not on the football team like you. I haven't kissed anyone like you have. I—"

"You got a sweet ride," Shane says. He doesn't seem apologetic for cutting Rick off, so Rick doesn't mind it. "And it matches your eyes, too. Total chick magnet." He tilts his head to the side like he's telling him a secret. "If I got a car that matched my eyes, I tell you what: it'd look like literal shit."

That makes Rick laugh, harder than he thought he could today. "Your eyes don't look like shit," he says.

"You messin' with me?" Shane laughs, and he leans in closer, purposeful, widening his eyes like Rick's supposed to observe them. "You're lookin' into eyeballs the _color _of shit right now, and you're telling me lies right to my face."

"Well," Rick says, "_ Shit _is a harsh word. I'd say they're more like soil. Brown. Healthy. Soil's got a good connotation."

Shane smirks less than four inches from his face, close enough that Rick can make out sunspots on his tawny skin. "Dirt ain't much better than shit, Rick. 'Sides, what do you country folk use to _fertilize _y'all's soil?"

"Oh, shut _up _."

"What is it, Rick? You tell _me_, man." Shane looks him straight in the eyes with that Cheshire grin. He hasn't moved back yet; still sits close enough for Rick to feel the heat burning off of his skin, close enough for Rick to feel almost dizzy. "You gonna tell me, or you just want me to keep starin' into your baby blues?"

"In agriculture, you can use a lot of things," Rick tells him, and he can't keep a straight face at the emergence of the exasperated grin of amusement that crosses Shane's mouth, his face, his eyes. "You can use fruit waste, old lawn trimmings—"

"It's _shit_, man. They use shit and you know it." Shane's laugh brings out the best in Rick, tugging out a laugh he didn't know he had in him; a laugh that doesn't match how the rain has begun to pound outside like it's remembered the prophecy of the weatherman. Shane quakes on the tail end of his mirth, his eyes shut, and he rubs his head like he always does, fingers catching the curls as he leans on his elbow and breathes. It doesn't bring him any farther from Rick. Rick can still smell the Old Spice on him, the stuff Rick's momma got Shane for Christmas. "You always wanna be difficult with me, man," he says, but his smile tells Rick he doesn't mean it.

Rick doesn't know where it comes from — maybe it's the closeness of Shane's body, or the faint scent of his skin, or the way his canines are the first teeth he sees when he smiles at Rick the way he's smiling right now. "You know, man, I _like _your eyes."

Shane doesn't give him any time to regret it before he talks — he never does. "Oh do you? That strokes my ego."

"No, man, I do. I like them. They're nice. Brown and … soothing, almost."

Shane takes his gaze away from Rick's in that moment, and his teeth worry the skin on his lip, brows crinkling. When he looks at Rick again, he looks skeptical. "Soothing." Shane says the word just to repeat it, not even a question. Just to taste the sound.

"Yeah," Rick tells him, looking straight into his eyes. "They ain't even fully brown. Got some gold in there. Maybe even a little black. It's a lot of colors. More than just blue."

Shane's quiet for a while. Doesn't look at him, but doesn't move away, either; he just sits back a few inches, resting, stationary. Not sad, just silent, thoughtful, maybe. Settling back into that companionable silence, Rick thinks it's fair enough. The storm's picking up, and he watches his breath spread over the glass, watching see-through drops slither quickly behind the cloud of fog. There's soft thunder. It's far away, but the clouds are getting dark. Rain's getting angrier.

He feels Shane shift next to him. "Hey, Rick," Shane says, the same tone he uses to get his attention. Rick faces him, a word on his tongue, but his response is choked out of him when he turns into the feeling of Shane's palm sliding over his cheek and feels Shane's fingers gently grasp his hair like Rick might pull away. Rick halfway expects Shane to pull him in to tell him a secret, and he anticipates it for a moment. He imagines Shane's lips brushing the shell of his ear, his breath on the side of his face, a blooming warmth, a baritone sound to remember. It's all cast to the wind when Shane presses his mouth to his, a gentle sideways slant to their chins, his hand a guide, his lips leading the dance, and Rick's trying not to seem so paralyzed.

It's a breath on each other's lips, moist mouths, closed eyes, hot skin. The inch of separation between their mouths isn't enough for Rick to murmur his thoughts. As soon as there's air in their lungs, Shane's closing the distance again, and he won't let Rick breathe until he wants him to. Rick's putty beneath Shane's lead; he melts like mercury beneath his hands, lets himself be guided onto his back, Shane's body hot atop him, the blankets at his back as warm as smoke.

"The pastor's not gonna like this, Shane," Rick hears his own voice murmur, wrecked and honest. The sentiment couldn't feel any more futile than it does when Shane pulls back from his ravished mouth to look at him, his rosy image quieting the thoughts in Rick's mind in one measure. The light filters grey behind the dense web of rain clouds, and it makes Shane's skin a canvas for the gentle slide of raindrop shadows that streak down his flushed face through the window.

Something like fear ghosts Shane's features. "What do y'mean?"

"It's wrong," Rick says.

There's a crucifix in the entryway carved in snow-soft stone, grey and heavy with the limp and dying body of a god whom Rick was told weeps for him. There's a granite stone cuddled by the snow princess flowers near the front door: _'But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!' _Rick pleads for the fabled furious lightning, a ripple of thunder, a shockwave in the clouds that coat the sky, but it never comes; like the answers to his every prayer, it never does. His fingers still clutch warm hair; his skin still flushes at the gentle huffs of Shane's breath over his face; the steady buzzing sound of rainfall washes over him like an ablution.

"Tell me to leave, Rick," says Shane. Dark brown eyes search his face, blown-out and thoughtful; more tender than Rick had thought him capable of. "If you don't want it, tell me to leave and I'll walk right back home."

"I don't know, Shane," Rick says, but he knows. He knows it maybe better than anything he's ever known in his whole life. He waits for Shane to read his mind like he always has; he lays patiently beneath Shane's body for his best friend to make the right decision for him, like ordering the ice cream he knows Rick wants before Rick's indecision ends up in a line out the door. Shane doesn't, for some reason. Maybe that's why Rick spotted the fear. "Shane, I just don't know."

Shane shakes his head, imperceptible, and Rick's fingers aren't gentle in his hair; he can feel the resistance making his skin ache. "That ain't good enough. I need you to know."

When it comes, the violent crack of lightning sends recoil through the walls and whuffs the electricity out of a light on the street; it brings a sudden haste to the shedding of the clouds, and like a curse, Rick can't hear the sounds of their breath over the thrashing rain anymore; in the silence of cacophony, he's left with only the vivid, frantic shadows sprinting on his friend's skin. He feels Shane's body endure a shockwave of surprise, but neither of them let go. It frightens Rick enough to make him bold. "Yeah," he blurts, not because the word makes any sense, but because it'll make sense to Shane.

Shane's eyes hood again; to Rick, it's the image of pure sin. "Yeah?"

Rick swallows tightly, nodding swiftly like he'll lose his voice; manages: "Yeah."

Shane produces a truly shameless sound, his hand heavy and warm and suddenly bruisingly tight on the back of his neck. Rick pulls Shane in so quickly, he fails to notice Shane already diving for his mouth, and there's a brief scrape of teeth before it's heat and security and the taste of the Coca-Cola Shane loves so much. Shane shifts and Rick moans urgently, startled, suffering goosebumps at the wanton groan spilled into his mouth. It's a white-hot lash of pleasure that turns his spine on itself; it's blinding stars he sees when Shane moves like that again and again; it's how his mouth moves on its own to the languid shape of moans and Shane's name, Rick's punishment for this transcendental sensation, because anything that feels good is sinful, and there are too many things that feel utterly perfect about this.

It's frantic grinding through loose boxers; stifled friction, and they're too sensitive, too urgently needy to spare the briefest instant to take them off. Rick's felt like this before; hard after a dream, baffled, repentant, confused because his memory was so foggy, it was only fingerprints of sensations: short, dark hair, a friendly voice, and the faint scent of Shane's laundry soap. He'd stopped before he could follow that trail too far – he thought he could feel phantom hellfire burn the hairs on his neck. There's no similar shame now, just nerves and heat and lust running circles in his stomach, and Shane's breath in his ear, spiked by desperate sounds and murmured words.

"You want this, don't you, Rick?" Shane breathes on a cracked voice, his composure hopelessly undermined by the sensation of it all. Shane looks so unused to it, so boyish and mindblown, but he's trying to will himself not to be so starstruck, Rick can tell. It's the unflinching quarterback voice Rick hears him use on the field, but it's vulnerable, and it's wrecked. Rick can't begin to fault him for that; he understands. God, does he ever.

He's surprised he allows his hand to sneak under the waistband of Shane's boxers and linger on his behind, the youth-soft skin of his palm on the bare, warm flesh and freely clutching without the other boy's permission. Rick's fingers — the ones clutching Shane, the ones gripping at curly black hair — dissolve into an unsteady tremble as Shane forces him to focus on his eyes. "I just want you," Rick tells him.

Shane looks caught between a groan and a question, and Rick can't kiss him quickly enough to stop him from choosing the latter. "How long has it been?"

Rick's paralyzed under the attention of his friend's gaze, that earnest brown distracting him from even the sheen of Shane's kiss-reddened mouth. When Shane slows to allow for an answer, Rick's desperate enough to tug Shane's hips closer with the hand on his behind, grinding up, savoring Shane's twitch, panting at the restrained moan Shane tries to swallow. Truthfully, it's been longer than Rick cares to tell Shane; longer than he wants to admit to even himself. Too long, because same-sex anything is a sin. Too long, because there's nothing Christian about admiring how Shane's football practice is bringing an appealing kind of curvature to the muscles in his arms. Too long of enjoying the feeling of Shane's hand pulling him up by the forearm when Rick needs a hand. Too long of feeling like there's something righter than right about Shane holding him up on his shoulders and gripping his thighs in place while they play volleyball in the pool with Jess and her boyfriend.

So Rick tells him, "Since Rose."

Rose, the brunette with the big boobs and the sweet disposition; the one who was always too gentle for Shane, Rick thought. He remembers the day Shane told him he'd kissed and touched Rose all over. Shane told him she had been his first kiss, his first touch, his first anything — but of course, Rick already knew that. Rick knew everything about Shane. Shane hadn't done it with her — Rick knew Rose was too shy for that — but Shane told him that when he kissed her, Rose said she'd felt something in her heart. Rick supposes it was only then that he'd begun to feel jealous listening to every detail.

No matter how flippant Shane tried to play it, Rick knew that Shane felt something deeper for Rose too, just from the way he talked about her. It was different than Shane's lusty musings over Playboy models. He was talking about how Rose had picked wildflowers and pressed them in wax paper for him as a bookmark; how her hair smelled like her namesake, and how he thought he actually _liked _it short like that no matter how much her so-called friends teased her over her pixie cut.

When Shane started pushing Rose away, Rick felt particularly disappointed in himself for deciding he wouldn't tell him not to. He saw it clear as day; saw that the only reason Shane pretended not to love her was that he was afraid of the feeling. Rick had the choice to tell him that, but he didn't. Shane was a little more solemn about girls ever since Rick let him make that mistake. Maybe at the time, Rick was relieved about that.

"Rose Jefferson?" Shane asks, grinning lopsidedly at him now. Because he still feels ashamed of it, Rick only nods; covers the flood of remorse with a laugh. It must be convincing, because Shane's got that glitter in his eyes that means he's about to tease him. "Been almost a whole _year _since Rose."

Rick laughs, genuine this time, and suddenly it feels less like he's groping a lover and more like he's fondling his best friend. It doesn't sit quite right with him just yet, but he doesn't move; it's too late. Besides, Shane's never let him back out of a good thing before, and Rick's only ever been better for it. "I just didn't think I could tell you, Shane. Not back then."

Shane's face turns goofy and he pitches a shoulder in a shrug that he can only briefly manage, being plastered to Rick like this. "See, I hate to be an asshole, but technically, you never did," he sing-songs, familiar confidence beginning to reclaim his voice. "This—" Shane says, moving his hand from his hip to Rick's hard member between them, "—I take full credit for this."

Rick moans louder than he should, canting his hips, twitching in his friend's warm grip even through the cover of shorts and boxers. "You don't shut up, maybe I'll change my mind."

Shane laughs, and even the furious storm can't temper how happy Rick is to hear the sound. "I could read you my whole shitty rhetorical essay I forgot to turn in, and you still wouldn't change your mind."

Shane's right — god, he's right — but if Rick's learned anything from him, it's how to bullshit. "You wanna try me?" He asks, and for how lost his mind is, it comes out sounding like an impressive threat.

Shane groans, moving back to clutching Rick's hip, this time hard enough for Rick to wonder if it'll leave a mark. Shane's voice is satisfyingly breathy and guttural above his mouth. "Not really."

It's clockwork, mouth on mouth and moans against moans, Shane grinding against him smooth with a total absence of restraint. It's Rick wanting to hear Shane's voice because he's learning Shane gets quiet when it starts to feel too good. It's Shane twitching and moving more reverently every time Rick pants his name. It's Shane murmuring something Rick can't decipher but nonetheless understands. It's Rick's hand on his face and his thumb on Shane's lips when he bucks up and he clutches Shane hard. It's Shane's moan at the sound Rick makes as he's sapped, stolen, frantic, wet, warm. It's the way Shane's final sound against his lips is almost like a muffled shout as he finds release against Rick's spent body.

Rick breathes out something even he can't understand, something that has Shane teasing him for the sound of his slurred voice. It's a long time as Shane lays boneless atop Rick, and Rick nearly groans in frustration when Shane moves off of him. "It's not safe for me to drive you home, you know that, right?" Rick asks him.

Rick's pressed deep into his own blanket snow-angel and content with staying — and most likely dying — there. He would be fine with that. He'd be okay. After he laid in his own contentment for days and eventually died of starvation that didn't even hurt, Shane would probably pick him up and set him in a coffin, bury him somewhere nice. Maybe he'd even go to the trouble of picking wildflowers for him like Rose did and tuck them around the edges of his body, dried reds and blues and a few blinding white bushettes of his momma's beloved snow princess.

"I ain't keen on sittin' in my own spunk, dipstick," Shane says, grinning at him over his shoulder. It's a thing that brings Rick right back down to Earth; right back out of the clouds of euphoria and to his best friend, this moment, the rain, the deep relief in his bones.

Rick watches him for a sober moment; just observes. He watches the glittering dark shadows of rain spill wildly over Shane's skin as he sheds his shorts and boxers and digs into Rick's drawer for fresh pairs of either. Shane seems to notice him watching him, but he doesn't say a word. He just smiles affectionately — maybe even turns red, if that's even possible anymore — while he buttons Rick's shorts over his waist. Rick sees him crouch for a moment. Shane's fingers dig for something in the pocket of his discarded shorts and produce a wallet.

Unable to keep the grin off his face, Shane tosses two ten-dollar bills onto Rick's bedside table with a wink. Shitty New York accent from a noir film they watched once: "I'm takin' a shower, toots. Don't spend it all in one place."

Rick disturbs the dried sweat on his forehead when he laughs, standing despite his sated muscles rebelling against him. He scoops Shane's discarded underwear off of the floor, and when he throws it at the center of Shane's retreating back, it earns him a glittering grin. He's witnessed it a million times: the origami crinkle at the corner of his eyes, the dimples in the center of his cheeks, the glow that Rick wouldn't expect from a pair of eyes as dark as Shane's. After sixteen years, it's just like any other given thing: the way home from school, the _good _station on the radio, his paw-paw's trick to tying his shoes _just _right, and every detail of Shane Walsh's smile.

But this time — and this spooks him just a little — he sees it differently.


	3. Jun 1990 to Jul 1991

_I'm up on the tightrope;_

_one side's hate and one is hope._

_It's a circus game with you and me._

* * *

**JUNE 1990**

Shane tells Rick he doesn't have to apologize for not knowing what to say when Mrs. Walsh told him his daddy bit a bad bullet. It's a quiet funeral, not due to solemn reverence, but because of the lack of words to say. It complies with tradition: the American flag, the tearful stories from men who could only be assumed to have known him far off wherever he'd been stationed. Pale, hot, unfamiliar faces line the pews like placeholder-people — people he's never seen before and will never see again. Shane stands still, casting his eyes into the open casket. It's odd to witness, Rick thinks. He wasn't expecting Shane to cry, but then again, he didn't know what Shane would do otherwise. Shane isn't unaffected; maybe startled. Maybe spooked. But Rick doesn't see grief there.

People toss wildflowers into the grave before they cover the casket. Isabelle subtly steps on the white flowers on Henry's grave as she walks away. An old, black button-up dress hangs like a flag from her bones, and her eyes are dark, cold; shaped like Shane's, but stormier. The next time Rick looks into Shane's eyes real close, he sees Isabelle Walsh grinding her heel into snowy rose petals.

**JULY 1990**

The house is full of broad windows: spacious, bright. Blue bricks the color the sky _should _be - spun sugar and late-March breeze — with each stone colored a different shade to bring dimension. It's a staggered kind of variance that almost looks like scales on a sleeping dragon. Wood floors the color of sandalwood, cleanly polished and turning the violent July sun into a clean and gorgeous glitter. Fresh marble countertops, slanted grey roof, vibrant red garage door, a _Jetsons _kind of style. Rick thinks it looks like what Mrs. Walsh wanted more than anything. For as long as he's known her, she's seemed like the type who spends a lot of time wishing she could keep up with the Joneses.

Even from the living room behind him, the sun attacks Rick's shirtless back with the promise of a burn. Though he isn't particularly grateful either way, the sweat on his skin cools him down just fine: it threatens to drip off of his eyebrows — has a few times.

It's been the three of them all morning and 'noon — Rick, Shane, and Mrs. Walsh, cashing in on life insurance money before the body's cold. True as it was, Rick hated to think that because of Henry Walsh pushing daisies, Shane and his momma finally got a real break from living like sardines in an apartment that was only getting worse.

The living room's littered with box-towers and furniture that was pushed in just to get it inside. Rick unwraps old kitchen plates and tosses the newspaper; Shane sets down a box or two across the way, eager to finish the job. They've all been a montage of workhorses, milling about their tasks: classic Home Depot Doers.

For what they are to each-other, they're unusually silent. Rick knows it wouldn't be so quiet if Mrs. Walsh couldn't hear them. Any conversation, and she'd want it to be related to the task; any time she heard a chuckle, she'd ask Shane if he'd gotten all the boxes inside yet. They've been settling for making faces and trading codewords all day, until the sun got higher and hotter and didn't relent. Then, it was occasional half-grins. Rick would send one out and Shane would return it flatter than it'd come. Rick's come to notice that pattern when they're around Mrs. Walsh — he always has, really. He supposes nowadays, he's come to understand it's something about Shane that won't go away.

Mrs. Walsh comes out of the hall in her oversized work tee and rolled shorts, wearing her staple brown lipstick like she'd be naked without it. A hand on her hip, she reaches behind her for a red pack of cigarettes that Rick's been seeing draw lines into her skin. With a shaky hand, she flicks a lighter; bends her head real quick over the flame and takes a drag. It's a moment of silence before, just like that, she's got her eyes on her son like darts on a board. Rick sees her throw her head back like she's exasperated. "You almost done, Shane?"

Shane's been getting better at hiding how he bristles when she talks to him. It's easier to see it, though, when there isn't a shirt to cover the sudden stiffness of his shoulder blades. Rick wonders if Mrs. Walsh can see it too; wonders if she just ignores it.

Shane casts her a quick glance and keeps digging into the box in front of him. "Got all the boxes out of the SUV," Shane says. "Still got the mattresses back at the apartment. That's about it, I think."

"Good." Smoke billows from Mrs. Walsh's mouth with just the word. She looks at Rick with calm eyes as she walks past him to open the refrigerator. The light casts bright color onto her dark skin. "Figure we can break into Ramona's sandwiches before we get started on the painting," she tells him. There's no such hardness in her voice as when she talks to Shane. "Thanks so much, Rick, by the way. Probably wouldn't be this far along without you at the pace we were going."

Rick isn't sure that's entirely true. He's been mostly doing the unfolding and unpacking; he struggled not to drop every box that he and Shane brought down the stairs and into their cars. Truth be told, it was all mostly finished by the time his own momma made him help. Shane had declined it every time he offered before then, so it'd been Shane and Mrs. Walsh working on their own, doing just fine without him. Rick takes three plates out of the cabinet when Mrs. Walsh pulls out the box of turkey-mayo-cheese.

"No problem, Mrs. Walsh. I'm always happy to help," Rick says.

Mrs. Walsh takes the plates, sets two on the dining table and one on the bar, and loads each one with two sandwiches. She leans against the marble bar and looks at Rick past a cloud of smoke as he sits at the table. "I kept _tellin' _Shane to ask you to help us; I don't know why he didn't."

"I didn't wanna bother him," Shane says across the room.

"He says he was happy to help." Mrs. Walsh glares at him with dark eyes; flicks ash onto the counter. "Y'should've asked sooner, Shane."

Rick sits a little straighter. "I actually was pretty busy doing somethin' with Jess. She needed some help with a theater thing — some summer play that they did down at the library."

Mrs. Walsh's eyes brighten just a shade. "How'd it go? Did she do good?"

Rick hears Shane's snort across from the room and forces himself not to give him a sharp glance. "Yeah. Yeah, it was … it was good. I didn't make a very good Lysander, but all she needed was to run the lines."

Mrs. Walsh smiles. It looks genuine. He sees Shane's dimples in her face. "Y'all should've told us. Wouldn't want to miss something like that. Shane and I could've put aside a day." She blows her cigarette smoke away from Rick this time, voice still light and airy. "I didn't even know Jess did theater."

"Jess has always liked that theatrical stuff," Rick says. He over-gestures with his hands. He's always been worse at this than Shane. "I knew y'all were busy; didn't wanna put something else on your schedule." Shane's looking at him from near the boxes; Rick takes a bite of his sandwich just to shut himself up. Too much mayo. Momma didn't make these, Jess did.

"Couldn't've anticipated this move if you'd _told _me to," Mrs. Walsh says. "Been in that apartment so long, didn't think we'd ever have the chance to get a house like _this _." She casts her eyes up at the surroundings: the high ceilings, the polished floor, the living room, the windows — all pointed out in a swift little gesture with her burning cigarette dropping ashes as she waves it. Bought with the bounty of a dead man. "There was no way we were gonna be gettin' one livin' on just Shane's money," she says.

It's true, but Rick wouldn't've said it. Before Shane's SUV, Rick saw him walking to and from his shitty job every day after school, even in the rain when Rick couldn't drive him. Rick had to convince him to get it — the _good _one, not the crappy, decade-old used clunker that would cost him a dime now and a fortune in gas immediately after. Rick didn't want him sitting in a vehicle that wasn't worth the work he put in to keep him and his momma eating.

Rick hears Shane slam the flap down on the box a little too hard; hears his boots grind a little too rough into the wood as he comes to the table. He can't help but think that if Mrs. Walsh wanted a house so badly, she should've helped Shane. The thought is so sudden, he's almost alarmed by it. It's rude. It's true. He comes too close to opening his big mouth for comfort; stuffs it with his sandwich and doesn't say a word. His momma taught him better than that.

Rick doesn't think Mrs. Walsh notices the silence: the isolated sound of eating, cicadas buzzing, the mechanical hum of the ventilation. She stands laid back into the marble almost as if seated. The counter digs like a knife into her back, and she's still turned facing the living room, away from either of them. She didn't watch Shane walk; she just looked through him, like a clairvoyant seeing just another ghost. She pulls the cigarette from her lips. Her lipstick has created a ring of brown around it.

"You know, Shane, I think we really did need it," she says to nobody. "Henry gettin' killed. We needed it. It got us a house. We're closer to work. Closer to the Grimes. Forty _thousand _dollars," she breathes. Her cigarette is burned down to a stub. "He didn't leave anything to us in the will, you know. Sorry I didn't tell you, but I thought you should know that. And here I was, worrying myself to death about _money _."

Rick watches her put her cigarette out in the palm of her own hand; watches her grind it into her skin on top of a myriad of other burns, black and red and ugly. It looks like it doesn't hurt her anymore. She gathers her hair into a bun it can barely fit in; has to wrap it about a thousand times, eyes brown and flat and empty. "I thought all he'd leave us was alone."

When Shane drives off of the course to the old apartment, Rick doesn't ask him any questions; doesn't think it's a good idea. He takes them off-road into a clearing — their spot — surrounded by the trees, bracketed by the river, the tires kicking up gravel and soil and stopping harsh beside the water they'd swam in countless times. No music, no talking, just the two of them and a lie that they were picking up the mattresses. Shane grips the wheel hard enough to turn his palms and fingers white.

Rick releases a breath that's been hurting his lungs. "Shane—"

Shane holds up a hand, tic in his jaw, breaths hard and shallow. Gulping past a lump, Rick adjusts himself in his seat to look at him straight. He observes as red rims develop on Shane's eyes; watches gentle wells of tears begin brimming the lashes. He can't keep himself quiet. "Shane, I'm so sorry she —"

"I hate that bitch," Shane spits. It's all teeth, it's a deep and angry furrow of brows, it's a hateful twist in his jaw.

The car engine putters, purring and gently rocking them. Rick shifts it into park. "I know."

"You always wonder why I never talk to her, always saying I should — you _and _Ramona. Y'all just _don't fucking get it. _" He strikes the wheel with each syllable; Rick flinches with the recoil. Tears bead precariously on his lashes, threatening to fall; to touch his red skin. "I _try_, Rick."

"I know."

"I do _everything_," Shane hiccups. A hot bead strikes his cheek. "It's like she doesn't see it. It's like I'm snapping in her face, yellin' at it, _screaming _at it, talking to a _wall_. I keep the lights on, I keep the rent paid, I keep the _food _on the table, do all that shit at _my _age _every day _— that's all the shit that _dad _doesn't do."

_Didn't _do. Shane's dad is dead. Rick had heard it through his landline. _'Shane, have Rick bring you back home. It's about your dad.' _

Shane meets Rick's eyes, hard brown on gentle blue. "You think she thinks I'm like _him _?" There's something dark that crosses Shane's face, brings a flicker to his eyes, heavier than worry. Rick doesn't know it when he first witnesses it, but it comes to him all the same. Something reminiscent of grief. Loss. A preemptive acquiescence to something truly horrible. It's what Rick _didn't _see that afternoon in June when Shane had his hands in his pockets and stared down into his daddy's coffin, face dry as a bone.

"Of _course _not," Rick says, but he truly doesn't know. He just wants to stop _that_, that flicker, that cruel wind against Shane's flame, because he almost saw the fire die, he swears it. "Your momma loves you, same as any momma. Maybe she's depressed; maybe she ain't seein' things straight, Shane. You can't just _jump _—"

"Nah, that's where I think you're wrong, Rick. She didn't love _him_. She thought he was selfish, thought he wasn't there. She thought he didn't do nothing for us. You seen what she said — how I wasn't _enough_. That's what she thought of him." Rick thinks back to the funeral; thinks back to Isabelle Walsh's heel on Henry's roses, and sees Shane's mother in his eyes. "If she didn't love _him_, she doesn't love—"

"She _loves _you, Shane," Rick tells him. White petals, black heels, digging, killing.

Shane makes a noise and Rick can't tell what it is. It might have been a scoff if Shane's voice weren't so wet, so rough, dragging like a broken leg over that thick sadness and failing to catch its balance. "No, Rick. She doesn't. I know you know that. I know you know that somewhere inside you — I'm _not _the only one, brother."

Shane says it like he's begging. Rick realizes he hasn't seen him cry over anything that wasn't an injury. He's forced to look it in the face now: red eyes, weepy voice, frowning pull of lips — _those _lips — that aren't supposed to do anything but grin and talk shit and maybe kiss him.

"It doesn't matter," says Rick. He doesn't know if Shane's right. "Jess loves you. Momma loves you. Dad loves you. _I _love you."

It might be that the last part is the only part that matters. Might be it's the only part that matters to _Shane_. That's fine with Rick, because it's true. It's true, and Rick isn't sure why he's never said it.

It isn't the first time it's happened like this — here, in this place, near this river, with the wind stirring the water and giving him chills. Last time, they'd come by to swim. It was a picture that was never taken: Rick's Civic parked on the same gravel, water clear as glass and Shane having manhandled Rick into facing him as they leaned into the backseat. Rick's mouth being ravenously kissed, Shane's hand beneath his swim trunks, the dense cover of the Georgia trees enough to shadow them.

It isn't the first time, but it might as well be. Backseat, belts loose, jeans down, kissing, holding, _"I love you." _Sappy shit.

**JUNE 1991**

Graduation. Long, black gowns, _"we're so proud," _and decorations in the gym that make it look less like a death sentence and more like a classical theater. Shrill cheers from a thicket of family members as Rick accepts his diploma. Wild hollering from the same family as Shane accepts his. There's a loud song about the 'next chapter,' and then everyone throws their caps into the air followed by dodges and giggles and shrieks as gravity plays its inevitable role. Rick tosses his cap with the rest of them. He's chasing the golden tassel with his eyes when he sees — too late — Shane toss his own cap straight at his face like a frisbee.

Somewhere in the middle of fake fistfighting, a loose headlock turns into a hug that lasts too long; curses turn into Shane telling him "I love you" and Rick saying it back. Rick smells his momma's stocking-stuffer staple on Shane's skin as he embraces him. Old Spice — of course he wore it.

**JULY 1991**

It's different this time. This time, it's just them.

They move into a third-floor apartment in an old, cheap complex that borders the city, their first day into a two-year lease long enough to get them through college. The streets are more crowded than they're used to, so they use the SUV and Rick's dad's truck to move their boxes. It's easier like this: just the two of them shit-talking in a talking new city that isn't hotter, but sunnier. They've got the windows pushed open and Jess' old portable radio playing at half volume, its two-foot antennae only picking up the city stations clearest. It's New Kids on the Block and Madonna all afternoon — it's too hot and there are too many staircases to fret over music they only hear when they zip in and out.

They pass the college both times they drive back to King County for the rest of their things. Rick's used to their squat high school with its handful of students and small football field. The college campus is nothing like it from what he saw when they enrolled. Vaulted ceilings, large windows, two floors, and an indoor fountain. Truth be told, Rick thinks it's a little much for a school predominantly known for its police administration courses, but it's likely run-of-the-mill to the city folk who live around it.

The police academy itself is much less flashy, much more familiar to his senses. Maroon brick and a cement yard; a cardio track and just enough space for lecture rooms. It's almost like a building he'd see somewhere on the side of the road back home; something that was cookie-cut and transplanted into the city. When they shook hands with the staff and got their paperwork, he felt like he's always known it, even down to its mildewy old-building scent. Somehow, the intimidation it fosters is worse.

The windows are still open, the sky is dark, the radio is off, and the TV sits unplugged, waiting. Every station that plays Merle Haggard sounds like it's been run through a meat processor, so it's the song of crickets, the kitchen vent, and two ground beef patties sizzling quietly on his daddy's skillet. Rick flips a burger and turns to the living room holding his spatula like a pointer stick. Through the smoke of the burgers, Shane lays on the couch in boxer shorts rifling through paperwork — domestic. The way he's laying with one leg bent, Rick can see straight up it, like looking up a skirt in a lewd magazine — nothing on under it, clean and shaven. He almost forgets what he was going to say until he clears his throat.

"Shane, you know what I'm thinking?" Rick asks.

Shane doesn't look at him, but grins. "Can't remember a time I ever thought I did and was right," he says on a chuckle, "but I'll bite. Were you thinking we ain't gotta worry about being loud anymore when we fuck? Wait, nevermind — that's what _I_ was thinking."

Rick barks a laugh; turns and flips the other burger. Maybe a year earlier, it would have brought pink to his cheeks, but the relationship they occupy now is comfortable, familiar.

"No, but the thought crossed my mind. You get half points," Rick says, gesturing with the spatula. A drop of grease flicks into the sink, and he thinks about Mrs. Walsh flicking her cigarette ashes. Something eats his smile away. "I was thinking about this thing we're getting into. We're gonna be holding guns, being around people with guns. People will trust us to protect them. It's a lot. It's a lot to think on."

Shane flicks him an enigmatic look over the paper. He clicks a pen; makes to write something on it using his thigh as a table. "You nervous?"

"You could say that," Rick says. The meat's getting brown. He places hamburger buns on two paper plates and adds the cheese; turns off the stove and places the patties. No lettuce, no tomato, no onions — they forgot those when they went to the store. He shakes out some chips on the side and tosses Shane a colorful beer from the pack Jess had snuck him because they were 'grown-ups now.' Shane looks up and catches it on a flinch — some bright blue, girly coconut flavor Jess probably picked just to mess with them.

Rick walks the plates to the living room; sits next to Shane, cracks a blue beer. "Sure, we won't be working in Atlanta, but King County still isn't entirely safe. You remember when—"

"'Course I remember," Shane says, wiping beer off of his lips. "Cost me a whole damn paycheck all 'cause the asshole wanted the goddamn radio."

Rick remembers it well. Ironically, it's what had him wanting a career in police work. It was midnight, slushy with snow. Slick streets, so everyone was indoors. Shane's SUV endured a busted window when it was broken into. The alarm went off, so it was a quick arrest — the radio was fine because the jackass couldn't remove it. All on the last paycheck before Christmas. Rick still remembers the look on Shane's face when he gave Rick the first in the series and not the box set. It was hardcover, leather-bound with a bookmark — so pretty, Rick hardly felt he could touch it — bought with what Shane had left. Rick probably still has it somewhere in one of these boxes.

"It's gonna be our job to take care of that stuff," Rick says. "Mom told me the guy had a gun on him, Shane. It was serious."

Shane throws a shoulder like it's irrelevant. "Bastard had the thing taken away from him as soon as they caught him. Didn't hurt anybody. He was a coward; the alarm scared him off."

"You sure about that, Shane?" Rick says. Shane's eyes are mirroring his: bitter, cold, just this side of a glare. "He had a firearm on him; he was ready. You don't carry a gun if you don't think you're gonna use it."

"But he didn't use it, Rick. He didn't get the chance to." Shane looks him hard in the eye. "Officers are taught to quick-draw and de-escalate. They know how to take care of those things. You think we ain't gonna know how to do that?"

Rick shakes his head. "Something could go wrong, Shane, you can't ignore that."

"I'm not ignoring _shit_," Shane says, a little too defensive.

Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, Rick drags his fingers through his sweaty hair and stands to pace, groaning over Shane's words.

"I'm saying there's training, there's precautions behind it. Even if he _did_ shoot—"

"Say we're partners, Shane," Rick whirls. "Say I get you killed 'cause I fuck up. Say I'm not looking and you get shot — say that happens. Then that's _your_ blood on my hands because of _me_."

The papers are somewhere else; the food sits steaming in front of Shane. "Rick, if that happens, it was gonna happen anyway."

Rick shakes his head. "What—"

"What I know," Shane interrupts, level and slow, "is when we get our badges and our guns, there ain't gonna be no-one else I'll trust to watch my back besides you — in King County _or_ Atlanta. If something happens, it'll have been inevitable. It ain't gonna be because of you. If anything, it'll be _despite_ you. Okay? I trust you, Rick. I have faith in that. You wanted this and I want it too. So we're gonna do it."

A pause floats between their bodies, Rick on his feet in front of him, his tense muscles finding reprieve in the words without intending to. Rick realizes he's nodding in acceptance of the words, and then he's sitting on the couch again, suburban husband and wife over a dinner tense-turned-warm.

Shane's hand lays on his thigh, palm damp from his beer bottle and colder than the warm press of their thighs, not an inch between them. Fingers trace shapes into his flesh and draw goosebumps. Rick doesn't find a lie in Shane's eyes, so he tries to weigh the gold he sees swimming in the brown. It's easy this way, looking at him directly, the light just overhead illuminating every shade and color. He doesn't know he wants it until it's his — the gentle, languid slide of tongue in his mouth, on his cock, coconut-and-alcohol sweet. Rick chose this for them, all of it. It was Rick planning the path, setting the rules, digging their graves.

And here is Shane. On him, in him, evidently fully in the belief that Rick chose correctly. Rick hears his own name murmured baritone into his slick neck, spoken like worship. He has to believe him.


	4. Oct 1991 to Dec 1991

_You've wrung me out too many times._

_Now hang me up to dry._

_I'm pearly like the whites of your eyes._

* * *

**OCTOBER 1991**

The moon glitters opalescent, a pale slice of bone in the frosty sky. It's a building larger than he anticipated; bigger than he hoped. Every wall to the outdoors is a window, and the floor they walk on is polished cement. The Atlanta seal glitters beneath their feet like a jewel embedded in the crown of a king. The Atlanta Police Department is the last thing Rick wants for them. He swore against it, prayed against it, laid awake until Shane's touch melted his brain from his skull and drew him in. It's a mockery of his wishes; it's the last risk they need to take.

It's the only option they have.

Their uniforms are stiff; prepackaged. They watch the officer remove them from hangers, pressed and sterile. A plethora of pockets, a dreary dark blue. Heavy badges that glitter gold. Badge numbers, registration of firearms, an immediate assignment to a field trainer — they've expected this.

They get a look-down from the dark-skinned woman behind the desk. Brown eyes, red lips, dark expression. Her gaze is enigmatic. "You'd like to be assigned as partners once you've completed field training." A question in a statement.

"That would be ideal."

Her mouth twitches at the corner; she puts pen to paper. "Have you been friends for a while?"

Shane spares Rick a glance. "Just about all our lives."

The lady nods, her head bowing down at the desk as she writes. "It says on your papers the two of you have the same address." She says it like it's an ice-breaker and not a statement meant to probe where she doesn't belong.

A meaningful exchange of glances tells Rick Shane sees through it the same as he does. Like he's talking about the cold, Rick says, "We attend the community college together nearby. Figured it's more convenient to rent out the same place."

The woman spares him a thoughtful brown eye, an amused smile skirting her lips. "Good. We're all about camaraderie here." She clicks the pen. "I put a note in for you. Your first shift starts tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM. 5:30 AM if you want a chance at the donuts."

The aroma of high-pressure air conditioning and floor polish makes him nauseous. There's no smell of drywall and brick, no coffee in the breakroom, no faint whiff of someone's lunch in the fridge. It might as well be a spaceship. Rick's grin is insincere. "Thank you, ma'am."

It's a cold ride home. Identical uniforms lay in Shane's backseat bracketed by belts and boots and badges, emphasized by the October moon like a suspect in lamplight. The drive sounds like Atlanta traffic and screeching wheels and a city that swallows them both. No words — there's nothing for it. Making a sound would be like embracing a stranger: unbidden, odd. The heat is on, but the frosty air of autumn rips through the glass and sinks into Rick's bones anyway. Since King County denied them, Rick's been attacked by the same few hundred thoughts, a record on repeat. Crime rates, violence, either of them becoming just another dead body on the thin blue line. A hero today, a number tomorrow.

A heavy hand grasps his leg; gentle pressure. "Hey. Come back to me, baby, come on," Shane says, gentle voice, gentle eyes.

Rick's heard him use that voice a thousand times; heard it whispered in his ear, murmured into his skin. It's the first sound he hears each morning, sleep-dampened and drowsy, a whisper meant to wake Rick well. Not for the first time, he wonders what he could have done to deserve it. It's something he chews on, something he really lets his mind ponder. He wonders how Shane's last words will sound if he gets him killed out there in Atlanta — some wrong move, some stupid call.

He wonders if his voice will be the way it is now: soft, patient, color to a blind man.

**CHRISTMAS EVE 1991**

The apartment is coma-quiet.

Outside the window, bloated snowflakes flurry wildly, trapped in the wind before slipping to the ground and melting, useless. It was drizzling before it started snowing, and it was silent before it began to thunder, but Atlanta is dead to the world — has been for hours — and no-one hears the chilling duet of the thunder and wind. No-one besides Rick.

The bedroom is aglow with the twinkling holiday lights twined on the patio railing across the way, red-green-blue-yellow just like the ones he and Shane hung up on momma's house before the two of them became something that came with consequences. Their clothes are scattered on the ground: dark bluejeans, steel buckles, and thermal shirts that came out of the same cheap pack of mediums — too tight on Shane because a pack of larges wasn't worth the extra five dollars.

It could be the nostalgia of the Christmas lights' that evokes the crisp-color memory of some day in December of 1990, alone at Rick's while everyone was out shopping. Cold hardwood on Rick's bare feet, mouths locked, the two of them dropping their clothes onto his bedroom floor and stumbling over the mess they'd made.

Back then, it was a blur of ceaseless hands, hot skin, and roaming tongues tasting goosebumps. Shane, responsive muscle under Rick's touch, following Rick's lead. He was reactive and pliant and _different _from the instant he'd kissed Rick all soft. He was compliant in a way that made Rick lose his patience — made him take control and never give it back. It was unlike how they'd been when it started — that subtle shift, that role change — and it made Rick dizzy. Dizzy because it was new; dizzy because Shane met him and multiplied him, matched his fervor and deepened it, gave himself to Rick and let Rick _take him_.

And Rick _took_. He took until Shane was belly-up on his massacred blankets, naked skin and dark eyes; tight, slick, hotter than _fire _when Rick rocked into him, fingers still slick with vaseline as he squeezed Shane's thighs until his fingertips were pale and bloodless.

The confidence Shane put in Rick might have been what did Rick in. Beyond all doubt, it's what had him shoving in deeper. It's what made his hands tremble until he released Shane's thighs and burrowed his fingers in Shane's hair. Chest-to-chest, skin-on-skin, everything was hotter, louder, closer, sweeter. It was murmured gibberish and fiery flesh and Shane's hands shifting from his collarbone to his ass to his sides — urgent; reverent. It was Rick pressing a tender kiss to Shane's temple on a broken moan — not doubting himself, not wincing, because where he was, coaxing moans from Shane's reddened mouth, doubting himself was illogical.

It might be the moment Rick really committed to what they'd become, vague as it was at the time. Just for an instant, head tossed back on a breathless moan, eyes shut, body alive with climax, he felt Shane kiss his parted lips, white-hot and slippery while Rick was still blind. There, gripped by pleasure, Shane's moans echoey and the world black and his flesh aglow, it occurred to Rick in one breathless instant that it could all have been pure fantasy. It was too perfect; make-believe.

It's real now. The bathroom door is cracked, uncapped toothpaste sits beside the sink, and combat boots and service shoes make a line against the wall of the room they share together. Winter's oppressive cold fails to breach the blankets — their skin is warm, smoky-numb with sleep. Rick's chest is pressed against Shane's spine, his knee between his thighs, his hand sticking to the smooth skin of his sternum. The concept of moving is beyond Rick's capacity to imagine. It feels final — earnest, infinite. A moment carved in stone.

It puts him to sleep, almost — Shane's pulse beating morse code into his palm. Brings him close enough to a doze that his thoughts slow, echo in his ears, dissolve, and die.

Maybe he does fall asleep, if only for an instant, because the sound hasn't come back to him, the world is quiet, and he's all but deaf when he opens his eyes. Shane peels himself from his grasp, shedding the blanket, a near-silhouette only illuminated by the holiday lights on his skin. Rick edges an elbow over the blanket and rubs the sleep from his face until sound fades back in: a gradual, tinny insistence blooming into the commanding ring of the telephone in the kitchen.

Shane opens the bedroom door; stops to rub his eyes. The phone is three times louder.

Rick groans. "'S'that Jess?"

"Should be," Shane murmurs. "I told her to call when she was an hour out." His hands fall like stones from his face and he lowers his eyes at Rick. A bolt of green light catches a sliver of teeth in his smile. "You cold?"

Rick breathes a chuckle and falls still, abandoning the attempt to kick the blanket back onto his legs. "I am now."

Quick work is made of it — Shane pulls the blanket fully onto him, tucks the corner under his heels, pats his foot once. He heads for the door with something light in his voice. "Rick Grimes," he says, his voice competing with the wail of the phone. "Could've sworn _I'm _your momma now."

"Or my wife."

The ring shuts off. Missed call, spoken message. From somewhere in the kitchen, Shane skips it. There's a scramble of plastic on plastic — Shane picking up the receiver, pinning the phone between his chin and shoulder while he plucks Jess' number into the dial pad. "I'm that bitchy already, huh?"

Rick laughs and stretches against the bedsheets. "Depends — you gonna tell me I got ten minutes to peel myself out of bed?"

"Nah, I'm a little more merciful than that. I was gonna give you fifteen," Shane says from the kitchen, pausing in the middle of entering Jess' phone number — a hiccup on a burning thought. "Look at us, all domestic."

Rick's laugh is belly-deep; quiet, stunned to a degree. "We sound like a couple who got pregnant and had a shotgun wedding."

"A honeymoon at Disneyland, funded by student loans," Shane says with a sleep-groggy laugh, voice echoey as it reaches down the hall. "The works."

"I'd respect you enough to take you to Disney World, at least," Rick objects, expending his glimmer of morning energy on feigned indignation.

There's a thoughtful _hmph _from the kitchen, a blend of curiosity and amusement. "Are Disneyworld and Disneyland really any different?"

"Oh yeah," Rick insists. "Disneyworld is plenty bigger. Lots more sections. Keep you busy for a week."

"Never been to either of 'em," says Shane.

Rick pauses, shifts to his elbows to face the door upright, as if speaking to it will bring Shane closer. "Really?"

"Nuh-uh."

Rick twitches his brows. The exhaustion in his arms aches his muscles. He lays back down. "We need to go someday."

Shane snorts. "You proposing?"

"I'm proposing we go to _Disney_."

Shane laughs from deep in the kitchen and it sounds just as close. "Fair enough."

**:::**

Jessica Grimes-Stephens looks prettier than she has any business being. Blue eyes, red hair longer than she's ever let it grow, freckled cheeks, Christmas tights, and a sweater dress made by their mother. It's been too long. The minuscule changes stick out to him: leftover baby weight in her cheeks, new freckles where freckles never were. Her image comes in cold, foggy — a vision misremembered.

He doesn't miss the glittering silver pendant laying on her collarbone. It's a token of her husband's faith, a faith they long-bonded over before she followed his footsteps and converted to Catholicism. It blinks at Rick in a sliver of moonlight: a dangling, tiny cross.

For Jess' part, she looks equally stunned — frozen-mouthed, wide-eyed, and shaking her head as if her vision deceives her. "Ho-ly crap." She cranes to peek behind Rick, bewildered beyond description as she glances between him and Shane, who mills around the living room. "What the hell have they been feeding you up at the station?" She laughs on a shocked breath. "You two look _buff _compared to when I last saw you."

"Would you believe me if I said we've been eating mostly donuts?" Shane asks. His familiar warmth appears just behind Rick, and their shoulders brush in the doorway as he does his best to share the space. Rick can hear the grin in his voice. "Can't say we can credit the donuts for that one."

"Well, I think you could convince me to lift mountains and fight lions if I could eat donuts all day and keep a figure like that," Jess quips on a joyful laugh.

Rick can feel Shane's chuckle vibrating through his shoulder. "It's been too long. You should've stayed in Georgia. Wouldn't be all phone calls and postcards."

Jess tsks, grinning at Shane — full cheeks, no dimples, just like Rick remembers. She pulls her red hair out of her face and gets a clump of rogue strands in her eyes like she always used to. Rick remembers that, too. There's a memory of her laughing and sticking out her tongue, the Georgia heat in her hair and that stupid mocking tone in her voice before she attacked him with tickles. He always _was _a little stronger than her — she'd only been able to get a few tickles in before he broke free.

There's a refined calmness in her eyes as she takes a friendly grip of Shane's arm and lays a sisterly kiss on his cheek. Rick sees the familiar freckled crinkle of her nose as she laughs when Shane wipes it off. Shane, 19 years of age, wiping off Jess' kiss like he did at age 11. It strikes Rick harder than it should, a baffling juxtaposition of past and present.

"Had to go up north to move closer to Michael's family," Jess tells Shane. She pats his arm and lets him go in favor of wringing the cold out of her hands.

Shane smirks jokingly. "Forgot about us for a while there?"

"If only I could," Jess jokes with a roll of her eyes. She shimmies inside past Rick, a whirl of some holiday body spray following in the cold air that trails her.

Rick locks the door against the wind, meeting Shane's eyes over Jess' shoulder when he turns back around. They haven't had a conversation about their shared closet more than once or twice. It's always felt like a secret — a substantial, serious thing that no-one else could know about. Things are different now. Changed. In the relative privacy their new lives have afforded them, their closeted relationship has morphed into something nearly normal. No longer limited to furtive moments or stolen nights, they've grown utterly … comfortable.

It would be common knowledge, this thing, if it weren't what it was. Things would be simple. Open. The thought of them going the distance wouldn't fluster him.

**:::**

_"Jess could stay at mom's this Christmas." _

It was a suggestion Rick had been thinking over for days — a nail-biting quandry that exhausted him. His elbows were rooted to the table, fingers woven, thumbnails pressed to his lips. Eyes unfocused, there was a pensive bounce of his heel.

"She could drive over there," he added, "spend Christmas Eve in her old room. We'd meet her at momma's house Christmas morning."

Shane's hands rested palm-up on either side of his bowl. The dining chair creaked as he leaned gently back, his eyes searching Rick's. "Jess has her heart set on staying with us Christmas Eve. I couldn't tell her no, really — then we'd have to make up some sort of excuse. Figured it was better for her to stay a night instead of risking getting caught in a lie. Things could go south real fast after that. She might take it personal."

A pause floated between them, long enough for Rick to consider Shane's words. Shane pulled his eyes from him — took a hand off the table and braced a thumbnail between his teeth. It was a pensive habit he'd had for as long as Rick had known him. Something odd colored his eyes — a greyish tint on the brown. It looked a little like guilt.

"I think we should be honest with her, Rick. It'd be easier, wouldn't it?"

Rick surveyed him across the aging table, overwhelmed by the sudden, incredulous urge to laugh. Shane's gaze jumped up to his face, stony. It wasn't a joke.

Rick sobered — suddenly felt exhausted. "Jess can't find out, Shane."

"I don't think she'd mind."

"Yeah, but you don't know that for sure."

A muscle jumped in Shane's jaw. "I don't know anything for _sure_, Rick."

"That's right," Rick bit. "You don't."

Shane tugged in a breath, dragged his tongue over his bottom lip, and clipped off a sigh. "Look, Rick. I've known Jess as long as you have. I don't see her changing her behavior over something as —" he searched the air for a word "— inconsequential as this."

"Inconsequential?" Rick breathed, bewilderment peanut butter-thick on his tongue. "There's nothing _inconsequential _about it. Usually, having a brother means having a sister-in-law — a nephew, a niece. You and I — we can't make that _happen _."

"Is that a problem to you?" Shane asked.

Rick slanted his eyes down at the white carpet — swallowed hard around something thick that ballooned in his throat.

"No."

But really, he'd never given it any thought — never asked himself if he wanted the life the country thought every man ought to have. A wife, a dog, a white picket fence; Saturday barbecues and church potlucks. A world wherein whatever he and Shane had was some distant, faraway thing that he'd had to abandon for it. He might have thought, once or twice, of a hypothetical scenario — one in which Shane was a woman with lips that tasted like blueberry chapstick instead of nothing. A scenario in which his skin smelled of light perfume instead of their shared cologne. A kid, a ring, nothing to hide.

Ideal, but not for Rick. It wasn't what he had bargained for. An instrumental part of Shane's appeal was that he was a man. He matched his strength, covered his back, shared his things, was built familiar.

Rick met Shane's eyes — soothing, he'd called them — and all at once, didn't doubt that 'no' was right.

"It's not a problem," he confirmed, because he needed to hear it aloud, in his own voice, unmistakably spoken. "That's not what _I _want — but it's what Jess _expects_, just like everyone else. If you have a brother, son, nephew — any _man _in your life — then you expect things to go the way they always do."

"So you think Jess is gonna throw a fit over that?"

"You _don't? _"

Shane rolled his eyes, rolled his head with them. "Man, have some faith."

Rick slapped his hands on the table, a ripple of anger dashing his patience. "Shane, this is _real life_," he hissed. "If we take this on faith, we'll be risking _everything. _"

Shane glanced down at Rick's hands, empty-eyed, uncharacteristically unfazed. "Right," he muttered. A twitch of his lip threatened the start of a scowl. After a pause — too long, silent enough to hear the buzz of cheap lights — he looked back up, face steady with the contrived calm of someone swallowing an emotion.

"That friend she had," he said," Simon—"

"Simon was just some guy from Geometry. I'm her _brother _."

"It ain't no different, Rick."

"There's a huge difference, Shane. It's _massive _."

"Fine," Shane said on an exhale. "Then look at it this way: if she can be best friends with some guy without battin' an eyelash at _his _personal preferences, what makes you think she'll push away her own brother for it? She has a record of being tolerant, Rick."

Rick was tempted to stay silent. He didn't want to hear Shane's logic. Didn't want to risk it, didn't want to be tempted. Couldn't hold his tongue. "It's different. Just trust me."

Rick couldn't muster up the balls to look him in the eyes while he said it.

It'd have been simpler even if Shane had only pretended to trust him, keeping his thoughts to himself and playing the role of a man who agreed with Rick one hundred and ten percent. But he didn't. Wouldn't buckle. Never would.

**:::**

"Aw, come on, Rick," says Jess, smiling as bright as any star in the sky. "You're acting like a stranger."

She brings Rick in with a hand between his shoulder blades, pulling him tight, tucking her chin in his neck and smothering his cheek with bright red hair. There's something mournful in her smile that duels with the joy in her blue gaze. It's almost like looking into a mirror.

"Well, it's been a while, Jess," he says, and she's smiling as bright as any star in the sky. "You look different. Healthy, happy—"

"Who said I wasn't healthy and happy before?" She asks.

A stunned laugh chokes from Rick's throat. "I didn't mean it like that."

"You know, Rick, usually it's me who gets in trouble 'cause of somethin' this early into a conversation," Shane says from the kitchen.

Jess laughs with that same old goofy snort. It reminds Rick of their momma. "Think he can fit my foot up his ass?"

Shane brushes his eyes over Rick, then looks back to Jess. "Oh, you'd be surprised—"

Rick coughs loudly. "Come on and take a seat, Jess; it's about time for breakfast," he says. "I know it was a long drive."

Jess gives him a look, scrunched eyes and tight laugh lines around her mouth, a bitten amusement. It's that same old look of knowingness she had when she caught Rick up late at night in the living room with his hand shooting out of his pants and scrambling to change the channel from the grainy after-hours station Shane had told him about.

Her exhaustion seems to win out, and she falls heavy into plush blue cushions with a sigh, caught by a cloud. Oriented as she is, she's cast in the deep glow of the lightless early sky, the patio string lights twinkling colorfully in her hair. The tiredness barely dents the joy in her face; she looks like she'd stay up for hours just to talk if she could. Nonetheless, exhaustion seems to have her gripped tight — her eyelids flutter sleepily over her smile like it takes all of her strength to keep them on Rick. She gives a brief cock of her head and her hair shifts in a wild tangle, trapped between her skull and the cushion. "Do you two need help with breakfast?"

Rick shakes his head; recognizes his own hunger, taking in the growing scent of sausage and pancake batter. The apartment is dominated by the sound of sizzling food. "You rest, alright? Wouldn't be surprised if you haven't slept at all with a drive that far."

"No need to worry yourself," Jess yawns on a stretch, her exhaustion underscored by a symphony of pops in her back. "I've done harder drives in my sleep."

Rick crooks a brow and huffs a laugh. "Hope not. Take a snooze at the wrong time, you're hittin' someone's granny. Just like that, you're gettin' charged with vehicular homicide."

Placing a hand over her eyes, Jess yawns again, waving away Rick's qualms with the other. Her hair only gets worse as she situates herself deeper into the couch, stark red on the cool blue cushion. Rick walks to the hall closet while she suffers another yawn; chooses the biggest quilt, shakes it out, and tosses it on Jess before she's finished stretching. Her eyes flutter shut on impact. Rick can't help but grin.

The kitchen might as well be another world.

Soft sizzling and the quiet whir of the stove fan; the bubble of the coffee machine, the careful placement of plates onto the kitchen counter. Instantly, he and Shane are mounding them with food together. Shane's quiet as he taps an egg to break it; almost masterful as he drenches the pan in its innards, a pinch of salt, a sprinkle of pepper. He learned what he knows from Rick's momma, listening as she taught them; helping pass the ingredients, stirring things with Rick. Rick supposes that's what led them to this: cooking together on instinct, Shane frying eggs and Rick grabbing bacon, their opposite hands touching as they pass the salt.

Shane passes Rick an easy brown-eyed glance. He's the picture he is every morning: black bedraggled curls, dry lips, and relaxed shoulders. All he's missing is a speck of toothpaste on his chin.

"It's nice having Jess around. Missed her something awful," Rick says quietly. "I know you did too."

More than he expected. Shane would have conversations on the phone with her some evenings while Rick was sprawled on the couch, willing himself to pay attention to a rerun. Rick's own calls with Jess would end fairly quickly: topical subjects with very little commentary otherwise. They made sure to hit every bullet point. How are you, how's the baby, miss you, love you, goodbye.

"Man, don't she look different?" Shane says.

Rick's smiles out of habit. "Forgot how small she is. She looks kinda ... glowy. Like her skin is brighter."

"Everyone changes after having a kid," says Shane. He flips another egg and lets it sizzle, its saucy white insides bubbling on a thin puddle of butter. "Hardly looks how she did when I last saw her. Sounds different, too. Lost the Georgia in her voice."

Rick nods at his hands, keeping up with his task. "She was standing right in front of me and I hardly recognized her. She looked like somethin' outta one of mom's old coffee table magazines."

Shane casts him an amused side glance, a twitch ghosting his lips. "You sure about that? You ask me, I think she looks more like somethin' outta that fucked up Playgirl holiday calendar momma got Ramona as a joke. The one with hunky santa and the sexy elves. I'm not sayin' I _like _it. I'm just acknowledging the similarity."

Rick suffers a stunned laugh; rubs a hand over his cheek. "I should've known you wouldn't shut up about that dress the moment Jess walked into Georgia."

"Hey now, I see you in the locker room. Soon as you stop sneakin' glances at every Officer So-and-So without a beer gut big as the moon, I'll stop fuckin' with you, how's that sound?"

Rick points at him with his tongs. "I never looked at anything that wasn't a tattoo," he says, feigning defensive seriousness. "It's like a picture on a shirt — everyone looks. There's nothin' wrong with that."

"Can't remember a single officer at Atlanta PD with a tattoo on their _ass _."

Rick would shut Shane up if it didn't make him laugh — loud enough that they both turn their heads to check on Jess once the laughter has subsided. Rick's confident she's out cold, and when he turns back, he catches Shane's gaze on his behind before his attention flicks back up to Rick. The edges of Shane's eyes crinkle, amused; he only sucks the bacon grease off his fingertip and gives Rick a shameless shrug that makes him smile.

Rick works the tongs, stirring and flipping the cooking bacon as he breathes a laugh. "How would _you _know what officers have a tattoo on their ass if you haven't been looking?"

"Oh, that?" Shane shrugs one shoulder. "Call it an officer's diligence. Professional observance on and off the field."

Rick snorts. "My eyes are gonna fall out of my head if I keep having to roll 'em this much."

"Wouldn't want that," Shane says. "You'd miss out on counting the freckles on McLoughlin's ass all morning."

Rick laughs; peels a strip of bacon from the pan with his tongs; sets it on a pile. "Give the cute receptionist our home phone number yet?"

"No, not yet," Shane says on a feigned disappointed sigh. "I'm a little preoccupied workin' the moves on Officer Grimes. He's kinda handsome in a goober sort of way. Fancies himself a cowboy type, but he's kinda cool in a goober sort of way. He's got _terrible _aim, though — might be a dealbreaker."

Shane flips a fried egg in the air, and Rick nudges his spatula so the egg slams onto the pan uncaught. A sticky yellow halo explodes around it.

Shane doesn't lift his eyes, just pinches the salt and seasons the runny mess. "That one's yours."

"Put it on my plate," Rick says. "See what happens."

Shane crooks a brow. "That an invitation?"

"It's a warning," Rick says. He can't keep the smile out of his voice.

"Is that right?" Shane snags a piece of bacon from Rick's pile; pops it in his mouth. "I think I'll take my chances with you, huh?"

"Can't think of a time you haven't," Rick says, no venom.

"You like it."

Rick shrugs. "I might."

It seems like a natural progression of themselves, what they've become. All it required was the space, the freedom, the privacy to become it.

It almost doesn't faze him when Shane's hand rests on his, a smooth thumb rubbing over the skin and veins in a tender gesture as he works the stove. A coil of alarm wraps around Rick's stomach at the touch, and he casts a glance over his shoulder at Jess. Jess remains asleep, shrouded in red-blue-green holiday light. Rick feels Shane follow his gaze behind him for a moment before it moves to the side of Rick's face.

Rick moves his hand from under Shane's; clears his throat, busies himself with plating their breakfasts. He tries to ignore it when Shane ducks his head in an attempt to catch his eyes.

"Rick, what's—"

"Jess can't know," Rick tells him, and that's that. It's sterner than he means it. "It isn't a good idea, messing around like this when she's around."

He glances at Shane in time to catch a muscle jumping in his jaw. "She's asleep."

"Doesn't matter," Rick says. He pushes Jess' loaded plate to the side; grabs an empty one. "I don't know what you were fixin' to say to her earlier, Shane, but it sounded an awful lot like—"

"A joke," Shane says stiffly. His expression is unreadable. "You really think she'd mind if she found out, Rick? Probably already thinks it. If she don't already, she's gonna be a little clued in when she sees us sharin' a bed."

"I'll say I'm taking the other room."

Shane shakes his head. "Thing looks hardly lived in; might as well be an office. It doesn't have your clothes in it—"

"It's what we're going with," Rick snaps, too quick to temper the heat. His voice comes out harder than a warning, and Shane freezes near-imperceptibly, caught off-guard. It gives Rick pause, just for an instant. Long enough to take a tender breath; steady his voice. "She'll sleep in there, I'll sleep on the couch. It might not be ideal, Shane, but it's gonna have to work."

Shane's stubble pulls at his palm when he rubs his face, and there's a soft crackle of hair on calluses; the scrape of a morning beard on skin turned rough with months of training with nightsticks and guns.

It's the first time Rick realizes the strangeness of it; feels how Jess might react if they tell her. It's a vision of stubble scratching stubble, cock twitching against cock. Too sudden, it almost strikes him as unnatural, like a common word that's begun to warp into something unrecognizable under too much scrutiny. It's a stark contrast to how he felt only hours ago, Shane's hot tongue pressing hard against the underside of his cock as he sucked the whole of it down, that very same stubble scratching his thighs and crackling against his nails, sloppy-wet with precome and spit.

_Just like that, Shane, oh _god—

"You knew it would be like this," Rick hears himself say, mechanical.

Shane shuts off the stove, turning each dial harder than necessary. "Maybe it _did _occur to me once or twice, Rick, that this ain't acceptable to _everyone_, but I was pretty sure it wouldn't be necessary to hide it from every last soul – least of all, Jess. Out of anyone, she's the most—"

"Jess is _my _sister, Shane. If she doesn't like it; if she tells someone—"

"You sayin' she ain't my family too, Rick?"

"You've gotta stop puttin' words in my mouth."

"I ain't putting anything in your mouth that you haven't implied," Shane says, wiping bacon grease off of his hands with a dishrag. "Anything that _your _family knows, _my _family knows. It affects us the same way; there isn't an imbalance of risk here, Rick."

Rick breathes a sigh. "Shane, I wasn't trying to say Jess isn't — I'd never say that. I'm just trying to get you to understand why we can't go telling anyone. What we'd be risking. It's not—"

"_Normal_, right? You gonna preach to me 'bout fire and brimstone, Rick?" Shane throws the rag in the sink, walks around him, and picks up Jess' plate. "I know how _you _feel about it."

**:::**

They're a festive pair, Rick's momma and Pop. They crowd the doorway in their most obnoxious Christmas clothes. In her haste to answer the doorbell, momma's already swung the door wide open, slamming it into the wall and startling the sleeping cat. Reindeer horns jut skyward from her headband and the white puff on Pop's Santa hat jingles with enthusiasm.

Strung with lights and wild with color, the Grimes house remains a mirror image of what it's always been. Purple cyclamen flowers stand in place of momma's snow princess, reaching ankle-height and just barely obscuring that age-old granite stone. It proclaims the same message it did a decade ago: _'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!' _

"_Merry Christmas!_" Momma screams, bright-faced and with her arms spread wide for a hug. It jolts a flinch out of Rick, whose morning, 'till now, has been particularly quiet.

Momma and Pop hug Rick and Shane; embrace Jess and tell her they miss her. Behind them, all the while, hangs that old stone-carved statue of the god whom Rick was told died for his sins. It makes him cast a sideways glance at Shane — a mistake. Shane picks up the gifts and ducks into the house.

Morning though it may be, there's dressing in the oven and greens on the stove. There's a ham on the counter and a raw turkey next to it, fresh and clean and ready to be prepped. It's just like momma to have Christmas dinner started far before the presents have been opened. 6:00 AM, and the winter sun has hardly crawled into the still-starry sky, the lingering night painting every corner in calm shadows. Rick is familiar with the routine — they'll have the meat in the oven by 7:00 AM and dinner will be on the table shortly before 1:00 PM. Less of a dinner than it is a lunchtime feast.

It hardly feels like they've grown up at all. Rick, Shane, and Jess huddle on the ground around the glittering tree, criss-crossed and cramped, shoulders bumping and knees brushing with every movement. They're adults, now, the three of them, occupying the small patch of carpet in front of the tree and filling it whole. In the past, they used to sprawl all over it, Jess tickling a fallen Rick, the cat stubbornly demanding the strongest sliver of light, all with enough room for Shane to run circles around them.

They're arranged as usual: Shane on the left, Jess on the right, and Rick in the middle, all bracketed by momma on the sofa and Pop in his cushioned recliner. The old radio plays a Christmas station, quiet under Jess, momma, and Pop's eager chatter.

_'Have a holly jolly Christmas,' _it demands. _'It's the best time of the year!' _

Unlike just about any other Christmas morning, this morning was uncharacteristically quiet — at least between Rick and Shane. Save for Jess, their routine was straight to the point. They took turns in the bathroom like they haven't in months. Their interaction boiled down to a muttered "morning" from Shane, spoken past a toothbrush. For his part, Rick murmured something indistinct, masking his disinterest with what he hoped looked to Jess like the grogginess of dawn. Once they were set to leave, Rick hopped in Jess' driver's seat to avoid a silent, tense ride.

Shane took it well enough. Hopped in his SUV, waved at Jess, and headed to the Grimes' as planned.

Rick wanted that to be the most of it — wanted to play nice for the family, ignore the tension, and keep their interactions brief and bare. Thus far, it's been harder than Rick expected it'd be. They've had to share anecdotes about the apartment, tell them all about their jobs at the station, and generally pretend that they were living a different reality. Disclosing the safe parts, clipping out the sin, wrapping it nice and tight — omissions even Rick wishes he didn't have to make.

It's a challenge, ignoring Shane. When he laughs at Pop's jokes, the sound vibrates between their pressed shoulders; when he shifts himself into a better position, Rick feels the skin of his arm or the brush of his thigh through his old bluejeans. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Jess materializes a plush baby book, the laughter petering off into momma and Pop's engrossed commentary. They're huddled, the three of them — look like they'll be occupied until they make it to the very last page.

Shane turns to face Rick. Calm eyes, straight lips, close enough for Rick to catch the spearmint on his breath. Close enough for a kiss, really, if Rick wanted to upturn his life right then and there.

"I'm sorry," says Shane, slow, quiet. "I should've —"

"Are we all ready for presents yet?" Rick asks the room. He slips into the act like a hand in a glove, reaching over and grabbing a small present wrapped in glittery green paper. Momma's got a joke on her lips about Rick always being impatient. Rick tosses the gift at Jess, who scrambles to catch it, unready.

Even as she works to unwrap the gift, Jess tosses him a glittering smirk and sticks out her tongue. "I see you're still a butthole, Eric Grimes."

Rick grabs another gift — from Shane to pa, this time. Reading glasses — nice, heavy ones he'd pointed out to Rick in a junkmail magazine. Got them in the mail, wrapped them up real nice, and wrote _'To: Pop, From: Shane' _in the chicken-scratch cursive he uses to write tickets. It hits Rick in a way that it shouldn't. Hits him that Shane might be risking just as much as he is.

"'S that my name on that gift, Rick?" Pop says, leaning forward in that ancient recliner and adjusting his old wire-frames.

Shane laughs, shark-toothed and handsome, like there's nothing bothering him. He even has the composure to joke: "Your guess is as good as mine. Never been able to read what I write once I get it on the page." The group laughs, and Shane grins right up until the moment he catches Rick's eyes. Once the room is well distracted, it comes right off, toothpick-frail and as genuine as a stencil.

Shane's always been real good at that bullshitting thing.

**:::**

"All that actin' bullshit, and now you're just gonna leave?"

Rick stumbles down the frosty porch steps, boots crunching snow-salt down into the ice and chipping wood. Evening, and he's rushing after Shane's down the driveway watching Christmas lights glitter on that wet North Face Jacket. It's wet-snowy-cold, and when Shane turns on a heel, his breath smokes up over his face.

"'_Actin' bullshit?' _"

"All that smilin' in front of their faces like you were havin' a good time. And they really bought it, too," Rick tells him. "Every time momma turned her back —"

"I'm gonna pretend you ain't even talking."

"You just looked at me like —"

Rick stops on that track. Shane's words register in his mind too slow through the calamity swirling in him. It buys Shane the time to twist the key into the SUV door and swing it open — get half a foot onto the blackness before Rick is even close enough to draw back the handle. It's a frightening image, Shane's hand on the door that'll close Rick out and cut off the argument.

"Fine. You go ahead and do that, Shane," he manages. The steam of his own breath blurs his view as he walks to the open door. "Just drive off in that SUV feelin' sorry for yourself 'cause I'm tryin' to keep our heads above water."

Shane's rattling the keys near the ignition, scraping the hell out of leather and plastic in the growing dark. Bares his teeth and gives them an extra shake when he can't quite find the keyhole.

"Where are you really going?" Rick asks. He knows Shane's excuse — he told momma and Pop he'd be off to stop by his mom's house before nighttime. Rick knew without a doubt that it was a lie. It was like pulling teeth to get Shane to associate with her. At home, their voicemail box chimed with messages and missed calls for weeks before she presumably gave up trying to reach him.

Shane looks at him. "I'll be at the apartment."

"Where are you _really _going?"

The jiggling keys stop for an instant, and Shane glances up at the rearview, the glittering lights catching on his eyes from the reflection. Then he refocuses, ducks his head, spies the keyhole, and starts the engine.

"_ Shane _—"

Shane slides out of the driver's seat with a foot planted in the slushy snow, dropping down and meeting Rick at eye-level. The sunlight's suddenly long gone, extinguished in the barren, frosty sky like it was never there. Six o'clock and it could almost be midnight, because the moon's reflecting on Shane's eyes like it did about three months ago —

Shane kisses him — deep, slow, and for a long time. He shifts Rick against the back door and touches his neck before he kisses that, too. Pulls back, black-eyed, and the moon reflects on that colorless color like it did...

About three months ago. It was reckless, really. They were in the patrol car and Rick had bet him a blowjob on something, and when it was time to pay up, they'd parked behind an old movie theater. Shane's hand was in his hair and Rick's shoulder was bumping the steering wheel, and Rick looked up from between his legs and saw it. Just like now, the very same moon glinted in Shane's dilated pupils — winked at him as he sucked Shane down deep.

Shane's voice is bass-gravel deep. His labored breaths blow warm steam against Rick's freezing nose. "I'll be at the apartment," he says. Jumps into the front seat, cracks the door, looks at him from the sliver of space. "Alright?"

Rick nods and finds he has nothing to say to what's already said and done. Shane gives him a squeezed smile, a silent half-apology that Rick's half-willing to accept — then flicks his eyes up over Rick's head. Closes the door, shifts into drive, and pulls out on the crackling, salty driveway.

It's only then that Rick sees it — a flash in Shane's side mirror before Shane turns and drives off. It's a silhouette far behind Rick, on the porch, haloed in light, with red hair catching on the nighttime wind.

**:::**

_"I don't see any gifts for Rick in here." _

Shane smiled at her, huffed a chuckle — a soft, fond thing — and closed the trunk on the pile of presents. It was a small tower of bags and boxes that just filled the space behind his second row of seats. There were gifts from Shane to Pop, gifts from Rick to Shane, and the polar bear bags she'd labeled for momma and Pop, filled with strawberry jam from Michael's parents' farm up north.

"I'm gettin' his gift later tonight. Guy from up at the station's dyin' to give it away. He's got a whole litter of pups. Bulldogs."

"Rick'll love that," said Jess. "He's always wanted a dog, but momma's more of a cat lady."

"You're preachin' to the choir, Jess," Shane said, and popped the sleep from his back as he looked toward the apartment's rickety staircase. "I only heard him every Christmas beggin' his heart out for one."

Jess smiled. It was a bit of a struggle to muster one, if only due to the time, but it was damn near impossible for Jess to get by Shane without him cracking a smile from her at least once. The sun wasn't up yet and the ride to Georgia had sapped her energy, but for what it was worth, it was Christmas. It was Christmas, and Shane had brewed some coffee-cocoa, and Rick had walked off without a word.

The bed she'd slept in was nice, but for Rick's room, it was strangely bare. She'd recognized her own old mattress under the cotton sheets, but the drawers were filled with towels and the closet was — empty. It was vacant. Unlived-in. And she'd started to wonder, as she lay facing the uncurtained window, if maybe —

"Didn't get to finish the laundry the other night, huh?" Jess asked. Bubbly smile, happy eyes.

"What?"

"I—" Jess slipped on her words, stopping to let Shane pass her on the way to the precarious stairs. "I put my suitcase in the closet last night and I saw Rick was out of clothes," she said, forcing a chuckle she hoped sounded oblivious. "Happens to me all the time. Sometimes I get so busy with Riley, I forget to do the laundry 'till I'm plum out of clothes."

She was careful how she worded it — didn't make mention of the fact that there weren't any hangers in the closet either.

Shane climbed the stairs two at a time; looked over his shoulder, huffed a chuckle, and brushed it off. "Rick, uh — Rick does his own laundry. Insists on it," he said. "You know how he is about that stuff. Always worried 'bout if the whites are separate and if the cotton's washed cold."

With Shane flying up the stairs and Jess trying to keep up with him, they were at the door in an instant. Shane was jingling his keys, picking through them with a thumbnail until he found one colored bronze. Before she could stop herself, Jess placed a gentle hand over his. She almost regretted it when he turned to her, his eyes brown and strange. His expression schooled into the color of innocence, it was the breath he drew that betrayed his worry — deep and anxious.

"Shane," she said. "Is there anything I need to know?"

Shane looked at her too hard — took an instant too long to decide exactly how he'd lie to her, like he was conflicted. Like he didn't want to lie to her at all, really. He breathed a short, ingenuine laugh. "Nah."

Jess took a deep breath, cracked a tired smile. "It's okay. Whatever it is. I don't — I don't mind."

Shane didn't budge — wouldn't speak, at least. Whether he meant to or not, his eyes spoke for him, overwhelmed with something he couldn't disguise. Something upset, something conflicted, something there-and-gone that she'd never see again. Then he pulled in a breath, unlocked the door, and went right inside. Held the door and everything.

**:::**

"He's off getting you your gift," comes Jess' voice. It's a waking nightmare, this moment — everything Rick has feared juxtaposed with her tone, floating as bright as birdsong over the fierce snowfall. She approaches him in the dark, wet, strange crunch of snow under her fur boots loud as thunder, and Rick wants to run as far as his feet can carry him. He's frozen there — as frozen as the icicles clinging to the persimmon tree that looms above him.

"It's what you've always wanted," says Jess. Her footsteps have stopped and her mockingbird voice rings right beside him, crisp and happy as a flower in April.

Rick doesn't trust his voice — doesn't trust his thoughts, either — or his eyes, which jump to Jess' pearly face and see something like a _smile _under all that billowing red hair. Jess grins at something on his face, then laughs and looks down at where her arms are crossed to fight the cold.

"A _dog _," she says. "Not — this. You wouldn't have kept it hid this long if you ever wanted this."

Rick's throat feels raw and sore under the burn of frost. Frozen tongue, frozen body, and hot, tingling lips. The tracks of Shane's SUV dot the drive in front of them. He wants to purge Shane's taste from his mouth with boiling water, fire, bleach.

"Found out this morning," she tells him. "Well — yesterday, really, when I saw there was nothing in your room."

Rick spares her a glance. He sees her odd, casual face and looks back out at the drive. "Didn't have to be that,"

"What else?" Jess asks. Because she knows Rick doesn't have an answer, she says, "Would've saved you both a whole lot of grief if you'd just told me, you know that?"

Rick huffs, humorless — cuts his eyes to her and nearly glares. "I couldn't." And it's true. He doesn't doubt himself until he does — realizes in the same instant that he always did — and he can't stand the thought that it could've been as easy, as _painless _as...

"What, you thought I was gonna pitch a fit?"

"I thought you were gonna tell other people."

Jess gives him a measured, careful look. "Why would I, Rick? It isn't my story to tell."

She pauses. "How long—"

"Few years," Rick says. "Two."

"Well, if you love him, I don't see any reason to waste your time thinking about why you shouldn't," says Jess. She looks out into the bony white distance. "How do you want to live, Rick? That's what it all boils down to. Do you want to be who you are, or do you want to waste away trying to be everybody else?"

"Don't have much of a choice, Jess."

Jess quiets; her meaningful glance warms Rick's face. "Then just love him while you can."

Some burden sits anvil-heavy on Rick's chest — turns his tongue sharp with the pressure. "While I _can_? What does that even mean?"

Jess smiles — of a pensive turn of lips. It strikes Rick more like a grimace. "Well, Rick, I can't rightly say," she sighs.

Rick wants something more substantial, an answer, a panacea. He knows it's something he'll never get — not from Jess, not from himself, not from God. He musters the strength to take a step away, turning toward the glistening house, but then she speaks.

Pushing a lock of red behind her ear, Jess chances a pensive glance at him. "I guess if I were in your shoes, I'd live like hell until someone stopped me."

Rick has no idea how much pain it'll cause him, but here, on this driveway, in the frosty-white dark, it sounds like an answer.

He looks her in the eyes, then, and sees himself in the identical blue. "No-one can know, Jess. Ever."

Jess' eyes flash at him, colored with disappointment. "Alright, Rick."

Jess looks off somewhere toward the old chicken coop with its ceiling covered in snow, and Rick drops his gaze to the slush on the ground, the slick, metallic water that blankets the cement and reflects the moon back at him. He sees Shane in that clean white ring — sees his eyes a moment before he jumped into the dark and left Rick reeling and picking up the glass he'd shattered.

"He didn't have a right—"

"Don't." Jess shakes her head once. That firetruck hair swirls around her, flickering over her bottlebright eyes. "Don't do that, Rick. Don't act like he did the wrong thing."

Rick breathes a dark laugh. "Well, he ratted me out and left me here, Jess — I can't think of any situation where that's the _right _thing."

Jess laughs — a twinkling sound — and throws back her head before bumping his shoulder with hers. A reassuring gesture — one she used to do when she teased him, caught him, cheered him up. "That dog isn't gonna get itself, Rick, give him a _goddamn _break."

Rick spots her at the edge of his vision, a short dry laugh forced out of him when he catches her glittering grin. The moment is genuine — rich, almost, with an inkling of their past preserved in a bottle, spotless and perfect and spilled out between them like no time's passed at all. Grinning under his scrutiny, Jess snorts — something she tried to hold back. Rick chuckles. Jess snorts again, and it breaks the dam, makes him laugh — a throw-your-head-back, manic type of laughter that mixes with the fear in his heart into some painful deviation of relief. It washes over him like an ablution; strains his emotions until, head tilted toward the sky, hot rain beads on his face and slips down his cheeks to his ears to his neck.

He doesn't immediately realize that he's crying. He doesn't immediately realize that Jess is holding him.

And they stay like that for a while, standing still in the biting snow until the flurry of flakes steals their focus; orients it at the sky. And there, consumed by the night's brilliance, Rick soon finds he doesn't care about the snowflakes on his eyelids or the salt on his face or frost in his bones. Head tipped back, eyes wide, and his sister with her arms around his shoulders, he finds he almost doesn't care about anything. The endless blue — and the billions and billions of stars deep within it — turn his problems insignificant.

Jess breathes a sigh — quiet — right where he left her. Rick tilts his chin down and looks at her.

"What kind of dog?"

"I dunno," she murmurs. "Bulldog, I think. Puppy."

Rick smiles. In spite of himself, his mind conjures up an image of him chasing the thing down the sidewalk, pulled along by the leash — and Shane just behind, laughing at him. Holding his hand, even. Maybe.

"That's cute," Rick says.

"Uh-huh."


End file.
